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MEMORIES   OF  A    HOSTESS 


liy  the  Same  Author 

ni()GRAPHK:AL 

American  Bf>okmcn  (1898) 

Phillips  Brooks  (in  "  Beacon  Biographies,"  1899) 

Life  and  Ixrttcrs  of  George  Bancroft  (1908) 

Life  and  Labors  of  Bishop  Hare  (191 1) 

Ixttcrs  of  Charles  Elliot  Norton  (with  Sara  Norton, 

I9>j) 
George  von  I^ngerkc  Meyer:  His  Life  and  Public 

Services  ( Kyiy) 
NVemoirs  of  the  Harvard  Dead  (19:0,  1921,  — ) 

HISTORICAL 

Boston,  the  Place  and  the  People  (1903) 

Boston  Common:    Scenes  from   Four  Centuries 

(1910) 
The  Boston  Symphony  Orchestra  (19I4) 
The  Humane  StKiety  of  the  Commonwealth  of 

NLissachusetts  (1918) 
The  Atlantic  Monthly  and  Its  Makers  (1919) 

VKRSE 

Shadows  (1897) 
Harmonies  (1909) 

EDITED 

'Ihc  Beacon  Biographies  (l  I  volumes,  1899-  19 10) 
The  Memory  of  Lincoln  (1899) 
Home  I-etters  of  General  Sherman  (1909) 
Lines   of   Battle,    by    Henry    Howard    Brownell 

(191:) 
The  Harvaril  Volunteers  in  Europe  (1916) 
A  Scholar's  letters  to  a  Young  Lady  (1920) 


Mit^i.  FiKi^un 


MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

J 

A  CHRONICLE  OF 
EMINENT  FRIENDSHIPS 

DRAWN   CHIEFLY    FROM   THE   DIARIES  OF 

Mrs.   JAMES  T.    FIELDS 
BY 

M.  A.  DeWOLFE  HOWE 


'  /  stay  a  little  longer,  as  one  stays 
To  co'ver  up  the  embers  that  still  burn 


JVITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS 
BOSTON 


Fl2 
■S 


corrmciiT,  igJi.  ■▼ 

M.  A.   DEWOtrr.  HOWE 


P«I!«TED   IM  THE 

United  State*  or  Aueeica 


OCT -9 '^2 

C)CLA6b3r)9l 


Avc 


CONTENTS 

I.     Preliminary 3 

II.  The  House  and  the  Hostess     ....       6 

III.  Dr.  Holmes,  the  Friend  and  Neighbor.       .     17 

IV.  Concord  and  Cambridge  Visitors     ...     53 
V.     With  Dickens  in  America 135 

VI.     Stage  Folk  and  Others 196 

VII.     Sarah  Orne  Jewett 281 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Mrs.  Fields Frontispiece 

From  an  early  photograph 

A  Note  of  Acceptance 9 

Autograph  of  Julia  Ward  Howe 

The  Offending  Dedication 15 

From  First  Edition  of  Hawthorne's  "Oiu-  Old  Home" 

An  Early  Photograph  of  Dr.  Holmes      ...     18 

Reduced  Facsimile  of  Dr.  Holmes's  1863  Address  to 
the  Alumuni  of  Harvard 23 

From  the  Play-bill  of  the  Night  of  Dr.  Holmes's 
"great  round  fat  tear" 24 

(Shaw  Theatre  Collection,  Harvard  College  Library) 

Facsimile  of  the   Conclusion  of  Ultimus   Smith's 
Declaration 26 

Mrs.  Fields 32 

From  a  crayon  portrait  made  by  Rowse  in  1863 

Fields,  the  Man  of  Books  and  Friendships   .        .     34 

Louis  Agassiz 48 

Hawthorne  in  1857 54 

From  a  Letter  of  Hawthorne's  after  a  Visit  to 
Charles  Street      61 

Emerson 86 

From  the  Marble  Statue  by  Daniel  Chester  French  in  the 
Concord  Public  Library 

A  Corner  of  the  Charles  Street  Library     .        .     98 
From  a  Note  of  Emerson's  to  Mrs.  Fields    .       .100 


Facsimile  of  Autoguaph  Inscuiition  on  a  Photo- 
GUAPii  of  Rowse's  Crayon  Portuait  of  Lowell 
GIVEN  TO  Fields lOG 

James  Russell  Ixjwell lOG 

From  the  crayon  portrait  by  Uowsc  in  the  Harvard  Col- 
lege Library 

Facsimile  of  Lowell's   "  Hilldoc;   and   Terrier" 
Sonnet 121 

Henry  Wadsworth  I^)nc;fellow 124 

From  a  photo^fniph  Uiki-n  in  mi(l<IU'  life 

From  a  Note  of  "Dkau  Whittiku"  to  Mrs.  Fields  130 

Proposed  Dedication  of  Wiiittii.k's  "Amon(;  the 
Hills"  to  Mrs.  Fields 132 

Charles  Dickens 130 

From  a  portrait  by  Francis  Alcxandrr.  for  many  yi-urs  in 
the  Fit-Ids  houM-,  and  imw  in  the  Mcottui  Mu-scum  of  Fine 
Arts 

"The  Two  CHAiiLEs's."  Dickens  and  Fechter  .    140 

(Shaw  Theatre  Colleition,  Harvanl  College  Library) 

Reduced  Facsimile  of  Dickens's  Dikections,  Pre- 
served among  THE  Fields  Papkus.  for  the  Brewing 
OF  Pleasant  HEVf:iiAGE8 147 

Facsimile  Play-bill  of  "The  Frozen  Deep,"  with 

Dickens  as  Actor-Manager 1H8 

(Shaw  Theatre  ('oli«-<ti()n.  Harvard  College  Librarj') 

Facsimile  Note  from  Dickens  to  Fields  .                .    102 
James  T.  Fields  at  Fifteen 1J)0 

From  a  drawing  by  a  Fn-nch  Painter 

Facsimile  Note  from  Hooth  to  Mrs.  Fields  .        .   201 

Booth  as  Hamlet 202 

Jefferson  in  the  Betrothal  Scene  of  "Rip  Van 
Winkle"  208 

A  Nast  Cartoon  of  Dickens  and  FF.rnTER  .    210 

(Shaw  Theatre  Collection,  Harvard  College  Librarv) 


James  E.  Murdock  and  William  Warren         .        .218 

Charlotte  Cushman  :    from  a  Crayon  Portrait     .  220 
(Shaw  Theatre  Collection,  Harvard  College  Library) 

RisTORi  AND  Fanny  Kemble 222 

The  photograph  of  Fanny  Kemble  was  taken  in  Philadel- 
phia in  1863 

Christine  Nilsson  as  Ophelia 226 

Facsimile  Letter  from  William  Morris  Hunt 

TO  Fields 231 

Facsimile   Page   from  an  Early  Letter  of  Bret 
Harte's 235 

Bret  Harte  and  Mark  Twain 242 

From  early  photographs 

Facsimile  Verses  and  Letter  from  Mark  Twain 

TO  Fields 248-9 

Charles  Sumner 258 

From  a  Letter  of  Edward  Lear's  to  Fields  .        ,   279 
Sarah  Orne  Jewett 282 

The  Library  in  Charles  Street 284 

Mrs.  Fields  at  the  window.  Miss  Jewett  at  the  right 

An  Autograph  Copy  of  Mrs.  Fields's  "Flammantis 

Mgenia  MuNDi "  before  ITS  Final  Revision  .  .  287 
Mrs.  Fields  on  her  Manchester  Piazza  .  .  .  288 
Mistral,  Master  of  "Boufflo  Beel"  .  .  .  294 
Reduced  Facsimile  from  Letter  of  Henry  James    299 

{Most  of  the  photographs  reproduced  are  in  the  collections  of 
the  Boston  Athenceum  and  the  Harvard  College  Library,  to 
which  grateful  acknowledgments  are  made.) 


MEMORIES   OF  A   HOSTESS 
I 

PRELIMINARY 

In  the  years  immediately  before  the  death  of  Mrs. 
James  T.  Fields,  on  January  5,  191 5,  she  spoke  to  me 
more  than  once  of  her  intention  to  place  in  my  posses- 
sion a  cabinet  of  old  papers  -^journals  of  her  own,  let- 
ters from  a  host  of  correspondents,  odds  and  ends  of 
manuscript  and  print  —  which  stood  in  a  dark  corner 
of  a  small  reception-room  near  the  front  door  of  her 
house  in  Charles  Street,  Boston.  On  her  death  this 
intention  was  found  to  have  been  confirmed  in  writing. 
It  was  also  made  clear  that  Mrs.  Fields  had  no  desire 
that  her  own  life  should  be  made  a  subject  of  record  — 
"unless,"  she  wrote,  "for  some  reason  not  altogether 
connected  with  myself."  Such  a  reason  is  abundantly 
suggested  in  her  records  of  the  friends  she  was  con- 
stantly seeing  through  the  years  covered  by  the  journals. 
These  friends  were  men  and  women  whose  books  have 
made  them  the  friends  of  the  English-speaking  world, 
and  a  better  knowledge  of  them  would  justify  any  ampli- 
fication of  the  records  of  their  lives.  In  this  process  the 
figure  of  their  friend  and  hostess  in  Charles  Street  must 
inevitably  reveal  itself — not  as  the  subject  of  a  biog- 
raphy, but  as  a  central  animating  presence,  a  focus  of 
sympathy  and  understanding,  which  seemed  to  make 
a  single  phenomenon  out  of  a  long  series  and  wide  vari- 
ety of  friendships  and  hospitalities. 


4  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

The  "blue  books"  —  more  than  fifty  in  number  — 
which  Mrs.  Fields  used  for  the  journals  have  already 
yielded  many  pages  of  valuable  record  to  her  own 
books,  especially  "James  T.  Fields  :  Biographical  Notes 
and  Personal  Sketches"  (1881),  and  "Authors  and 
Friends"  (1896);  also  even,  here  and  there,  to  Mr. 
Fields's  "Yesterdays  with  Authors"  (1871).  Yet  she 
left  unprinted  much  that  is  both  picturesque  and  illumi- 
nating :  so  many  of  the  persons  mentioned  in  the  jour- 
nal were  still  living  or  had  but  recently  died  when  her 
books  were  written.  There  are,  besides,  many  passages 
used  in  a  fragmentary  way,  which  may  now  with  pro- 
priety be  given  complete. 

Into  these  manuscript  journals,  then,  I  propose  to 
dip  afresh  —  not  with  the  purpose  of  passing  in  a  mis- 
cellaneous review  all  the  friends  who  crossed  the  thresh- 
old of  the  Charles  Street  house  in  a  fixed  period  of 
time,  but  rather  in  pursuit  of  what  seems  a  more  prom- 
ising quest  —  namely,  to  consider  separate  friends  and 
groups  of  friends  in  turn  ;  to  assemble  from  the  journals 
passages  that  have  to  do  with  them ;  to  supplement 
these  by  drawing  now  and  then  upon  the  old  cabinet 
for  a  letter  from  this  or  that  friend  to  Mr.  or  Mrs. 
Fields,  and  thus  to  step  back  across  the  years  into  a 
time  and  scene  of  refreshing  remembrance.  Many  a 
friend,  many  a  friendship,  must  be  left  untouched.  In 
the  processes  of  selection,  figures  of  more  than  local 
significance  will  receive  the  chief  consideration.  In  pas- 
sages relating  to  one  person,  allusions  to  many  others, 
sometimes  treated  separately  in  other  passages,  will 


PRELIMINARY  5 

often  be  found,  for  the  friendships  with  one  and  an- 
other were  constantly  overlapping  and  interlocking. 
Bits  of  record  of  no  obviously  great  importance  will  be 
included,  not  because  they  or  the  subjects  of  them  are 
taken  with  undue  seriousness,  but  merely  that  a  van- 
ished society,  interesting  in  itself  to  those  who  care  for 
the  past  and  doubly  interesting  as  material  for  a  study 
in  contrasts  with  the  present,  may  have  again  its  "day 
in  court."  When  Fields  was  publishing  his  reminis- 
cences of  Hawthorne,  Lowell  wrote  to  him:  "Be  sure 
and  don't  leave  anything  out  because  it  seems  trifling, 
for  it  is  out  of  these  trifles  only  that  it  is  possible  to 
reconstruct  character  sometimes,  if  not  always";  and 
he  commended  especially  the  hitting  of  "the  true  chan- 
nel between  the  Charybdis  of  reticence,  and  the  Scylla 
of  gossip."  Under  sailing  orders  of  this  nature,  self- 
imposed,  I  hope  to  proceed. 

"Another  added  to  my  cloud  of  witnesses," -wrote 
Mrs.  Fields  in  her  journal,  on  hearing,  in  1867,  that 
Forceythe  Willson  had  died.  Nearly  fifty  years  of  life 
then  remained  to  the  diarist,  though  she  continued  to 
keep  her  diary  with  regularity  for  hardly  ten.  Before 
her  own  death  the  cloud  of  witnesses  was  infinitely  ex- 
tended. Yet  new  friends  constantly  stood  ready  to  fill, 
as  best  they  might,  the  gaps  that  were  left  by  the  old. 
It  is  not  the  new  who  will  appear  in  the  following  pages, 
but  those  with  whom  Mrs.  Fields  herself  must  now  be 
numbered. 


II 

THE  HOUSE  AND  THE  HOSTESS 

The  fact  that  Henry  James,  in  "The  American 
Scene,"  published  in  1907,  and  again  in  an  article  which 
appeared  in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  and  the  "Cornhill 
Magazine"  in  July,  1915,  has  set  down  in  his  own  ulti- 
mate words  his  memories  of  Mrs.  Fields  and  her  Boston 
abode  would  be  the  despair  of  anyone  attempting  a 
similar  task  —  were  it  not  that  quotation  remains  an 
unprohibited  practice.  In  "The  American  Scene"  he 
evokes  from  the  past  "the  Charles  Street  ghosts,"  and 
gives  them  their  local  habitation:  "Here,  behind  the 
effaced  anonymous  door"  —  a  more  literal-minded 
realist  might  have  noted  that  a  vestibule-door  contrib- 
uted the  only  efTacement  and  anonymity  —  "was  the 
little  ark  of  the  modern  deluge,  here  still  the  long 
drawing-room  that  looks  over  the  water  and  towards 
the  sunset,  with  a  seat  for  every  visiting  shade,  from 
far-away  Thackeray  down,  and  relics  and  tokens  so  thick 
on  its  walls  as  to  make  it  positively,  in  all  the  town,  the 
votive  temple  to  memory."  In  his  "Atlantic"  and 
"Cornhill"  article  he  refers  to  the  house,  in  a  phrase  at 
which  Mrs.  Fields  would  have  smiled,  as  "the  waterside 
museum  of  the  Fieldses,"  and  to  them  as  "addicted  to 
every  hospitality  and  every  benevolence,  addicted  to 
the  cultivation  of  talk  and  wit  and  to  the  ingenious 
multiplication  of  such  ties  as  could  link  the  upper  half 


HOUSE  AND  HOSTESS  7 

of  the  title-page  with  the  lower";  he  pays  tribute  to 
*' their  vivacity,  their  curiosity,  their  mobility,  the  felic- 
ity of  their  instinct  for  any  manner  of  gathered  relic, 
remnant,  or  tribute";  and  in  Mrs.  Fields  herself,  sur- 
viving her  husband  for  many  years,  he  notes  "  the  per- 
sonal beauty  of  her  younger  years,  long  retained  and  not 
even  at  the  end  of  such  a  stretch  of  life  quite  lost ;  the 
exquisite  native  tone  and  mode  of  appeal,  which  an- 
ciently we  perhaps  thought  a  little  'precious,*  but  from 
which  the  distinctive  and  the  preservative  were  in  time 
to  be  snatched,  a  greater  extravagance  supervening; 
the  signal  sweetness  of  temper  and  lightness  of  tact." 

There  is  one  more  of  Henry  James's  remarks  about 
Mrs.  Fields  that  must  be  quoted,  "All  her  implica- 
tions," he  says,  "were  gay,  since  no  one  so  finely  senti- 
mental could  be  noted  as  so  humorous ;  just  as  no  femi- 
nine humor  was  perhaps  ever  so  unmistakingly  directed, 
and  no  state  of  amusement,  amid  quantities  of  reminis- 
cence, perhaps  ever  so  merciful."  Mirth  and  mercy  do 
not  always,  like  righteousness  and  peace,  kiss  each 
other.  In  Mrs.  Fields  the  capacity  for  incapacitating 
laughter  was  such  that  I  cannot  help  recalling  one  occa- 
sion, near  the  end  of  her  life,  when  an  attempt  to  tell  a 
certain  story  —  of  which  I  remember  nothing  but  that 
it  had  to  do  with  a  horse  • —  involved  her  in  such  merri- 
ment that  after  repeated  efforts  to  reach  its  "point,"  she 
was  forced  to  abandon  the  endeavor.  What  I  cannot 
recall  in  a  single  instance,  in  the  excellent  telling  of  in- 
numerable anecdotes,  is  unkindness,  in  word  or  sugges- 
tion, toward  the  persons  involved  in  them.    Mr.  James 


8  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

did  well  to  include  this  item  in  his  enumeration  of  Mrs. 
Fields's  qualities. 

Through  all  his  lenses  of  memory  and  phrase  he 
brought  so  vividly  to  one's  own  vision  the  Mrs.  Fields 
a  younger  generation  had  known  that,  on  reading  what 
he  had  written,  I  wrote  to  him  in  England,  then  nearly 
ending  its  first  year  in  the  war,  and  must  have  said  that 
his  pages  would  help  me,  at  some  future  day,  to  deal 
with  these  of  my  own,  now  at  last  taking  form.  Thus, 
in  part,  he  replied  :  — 

'July  20/A,  1 91 5 
Your  appreciation  reached  me,  alas,  but  through  the 
most  muffling  and  deadening  thickness  of  our  unspeaka- 
ble actuality  here.  It  was  to  try  and  get  out  of  that  a 
little  that  I  wrote  my  paper  —  in  the  most  difficult  and 
defeating  conditions,  which  seemed  to  me  to  make  it, 
with  my  heart  so  utterly  elsewhere,  a  deplorably  make- 
believe  attempt.  Therefore  if  it  had  any  virtue,  there 
must  still  be  some  in  my  poor  old  stump  of  a  pen.  Yes, 
the  pipe  of  peace  is  a  thing  one  has,  amid  our  storm  and 
stress,  to  listen  very  hard  for  when  it  twitters,  from  afar, 
outside;  and  when  you  shall  pipe  it  over  your  exhibi- 
tion of  dear  Mrs.  Fields's  relics  and  documents  I  shall 
respond  to  your  doing  so  with  whatever  attention  may 
then  be  possible  to  me.  We  are  not  detached  here,  in 
your  enviable  way  —  but  just  exactly  so  must  we  there- 
fore make  some  small  effort  to  escape,  even  into  what- 
ever fatuity  of  illusion,  to  keep  our  heads  above  water  at 
all.  That  in  short  is  the  history  of  my  "  Cornhill "  scrap. 


HOUSE  AND  HOSTESS  9 

The  time  into  which  Henry  James  escaped  by  "pip- 
ing" of  Mrs.  Fields  has  now  grown  far  more  remote  than 
the  added  span  of  the  last  seven  years,  merely  as  years, 
could  have  made  it.    Remote  enough  it  seemed  to  him 


jir-ujO^ 


A  Note  of  Acceptance 

when,  at  the  end  of  his  reminiscences  of  the  Fieldses,  he 
recalled  a  small  "feast"  in  the  Charles  Street  dining- 
room  at  which  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  —  it  must  have 
been  about  1906  —  rose  and  declaimed,  "a  little  quaver- 
ingly,  but  ever  so  gallantly,  that  'Battle  Hymn  of  the 
Republic'  which  she  caused  to  be  chanted  half  a  cen- 
tury before  and  still  could  accompany  with  a  real 
breadth  of  gesture,  her  great  clap  of  hands  and  indica- 
tion of  the  complementary  step,  on  the  triumphant 


lo  iMEMORIKS  Ob'  A  HOSTESS 

line,  'Be  swift  my  hands  to  welcome  him,  be  jubilant 
my  feet !'" 

Now  it  fell  to  my  lot  that  night,  as  perhaps  the  young- 
est of  the  party,  to  convoy  Mrs.  Howe  across  two  wintry 
bits  of  sidewalk  into  the  carriage  which  bore  her  to  and 
from  the  memorable  dinner-party,  and  to  accompany 
her  on  each  of  the  little  journeys.  Quite  as  clear  in  my 
memory  as  her  recitation  of  the  "Battle  Hymn"  was 
the  note  of  finality  in  her  voice,  quite  free  from  unkind- 
ness,  as  she  settled  down  for  the  return  drive  to  her 
house  in  Beacon  Street,  far  from  a  towering  figure,  and 
announced  in  the  darkness:  "Annie  Fields  has  shrunk." 
The  hostess  we  were  leaving  and  the  guest  some  fifteen 
years  her  senior,  and  nearing  ninety  with  what  seemed 
an  immortally  youthful  spirit,  appear,  when  those 
words  are  recalled,  as  they  must  have  been  before  either 
was  touched  by  the  diminishing  hand  of  age;  and  the 
house  whose  door  had  just  closed  upon  us  —  a  house 
more  recently  obliterated  to  make  room  for  a  monstrous 
garage  —  came  back  as  the  scene  of  many  a  gathering 
of  which  the  little  feast  described  by  Henry  James  was 
but  a  type. 

Early  in  January  of  191  5  this  tloor,  which  through  a 
period  of  sixty  years  had  opened  upon  extraordinary 
hospitality,  was  finally  closed.  Since  1H66  it  had  borne 
the  number  I48.  Ten  years  earlier,  in  1856,  when  the 
house  was  first  occupied  by  James  T.  Fields,  afterwards 
identified  with  the  publishing  firms  of  Ticknor  and 
Fields,  and  Fields,  Osgood  and  Company,  it  was  num- 
bered J7,  Charles  Street.    This  Boston  man  of  books 


HOUSE  AND  HOSTESS  ii 

and  friendships,  who  before  his  death  in  1881  was  to 
become  widely  known  as  publisher,  editor,  lecturer,  and 
writer,  had  married,  in  1850,  Eliza  Josephine  Willard,  a 
daughter  of  Simon  Willard,  Jr.,  of  the  name  still  honor- 
ably associated  with  the  even  passage  of  time.  She  died 
within  a  few  months,  and  in  November  of  1854  ^^  mar- 
ried her  cousin,  Annie  Adams,  not  yet  twenty  years  old, 
the  beautiful  daughter  of  Dr.  Zabdiel  Boylston  Adams. 
For  those  who  knew  Mrs.  Fields  toward  the  end  of  her 
four  score  and  more  years,  it  was  far  easier  to  see  in  her 
charming  face  and  presence  the  exquisite,  eager  young 
woman  of  the  mid-nineteenth  century  than  to  detect  in 
the  Charles  Street  of  191 5,  of  which  she  was  the  last  in- 
habitant of  her  own  kind,  any  resemblance  to  the 
delightful  street  of  family  dwellings,  many  of  them  look- 
ing out  over  the  then  unfilled  "  Back  Bay,"  to  which  she 
had  come  about  sixty  years  before.  The  Fieldses  had 
lived  here  but  a  few  years  when,  in  1859,  Dr.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  —  with  the  "Autocrat"  a  year  behind 
him  and  the  "Professor"  a  year  ahead  —  became  their 
neighbor  at  21,  subsequently  164,  Charles  Street.  On 
the  other  side  of  them,  nearer  Beacon  Street,  John  A. 
Andrew,  the  great  war  governor  of  Massachusetts,  was 
a  friend  and  neighbor.  Across  the  way,  for  a  time,  lived 
Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich.  In  hillside  streets  near  by  dwelt 
many  persons  of  congenial  tastes,  whose  work  and  char- 
acter contributed  greatly  to  making  Boston  what  it  was 
through  the  second  half  of  the  last  century. 

The  distinctive  flavor  of  the  neighborhood  derived 
nothing  more  from  any  of  its  households  than  from  that 


12  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fields.  Their  dining-room  and  drawing- 
room*  —  that  green  assembling-place  of  books,  pictures, 
music,  persons,  associations,  all  to  be  treasured  —  were 
the  natural  resort,  not  only  of  the  whole  notable  local 
company  of  writers  whose  publisher  was  also  their  true 
and  valued  friend,  but,  besides,  of  many  of  the  eminent 
visitors  to  Boston,  of  the  type  represented  most  con- 
spicuously by  Charles  Dickens.  After  the  death  of  Mr. 
ImcKIs  there  was  far  more  than  a  tradition  carried  on 
in  the  Charles  Street  house.  Not  merely  for  what  it 
had  meant,  but  for  all  that  the  gracious  personality  of 
Mrs,  FicKls  caused  it  to  go  on  meaning,  it  continued 
through  her  lifetime  —  extending  beyond  that  of  Miss 
Sarah  Orne  Jewett,  for  so  many  years  of  Mrs.  Fields's 
widowhood  her  delightful  sister-hostess  —  the  resort  of 
older  and  younger  friends,  whose  present  thus  drew  a 
constant  enrichment  from  the  past. 

It  was  not  till  1863,  nearly  ten  years  after  her  mar- 
riage, that  Mrs.  Fields,  who  had  kept  a  diary  during  a 
visit  to  Europe  in  1859-60  with  her  husband,  and  for 
other  brief  periods,  applied  herself  regularly  to  this 
practice,  maintained  through  1876,  and  thereafter 
renewed  but  intermittently.  She  wrote  on  the  cover  of 
the  first  slender  volume:  "No.  1.  Journal  of  Literary 
Events  and  Glimpses  of  Interesting  People."  A  few 
of  its  earliest  pages,  revealing  its  general  purpose  and 
character,  may  well  precede  the  passages  relating,  in 
accordance  with  the  plan  already  indicated,  to  individ- 

'  ./  Shelf  (ij  Old  Books,  by  Mrs.  Fields  (1894),  pictures  many  aspects  of  the 
house  and  its  contents. 


HOUSE  AND  HOSTESS  13 

ual  friends  and  groups  of  friends.  In  the  first  pages 
of  all,  on  which  Mrs.  Fields  built  a  few  sentences  for 
her  "Biographical  Notes,"  I  find:  — 

July  26,  1863.  —  What  a  strange  history  this  literary- 
life  in  America  at  the  present  day  would  make.  An 
editor  and  publisher  at  once,  and  at  this  date,  stands 
at  a  confluence  of  tides  where  all  humanity  seems  to 
surge  up  in  little  waves;  some  larger  than  the  rest 
(every  seventh  it  may  be)  dashes  up  in  music  to  which 
the  others  love  to  listen ;  or  some  springing  to  a  great 
height  retire  to  tell  the  story  of  their  flight  to  those  who 
stay  below. 

Mr.  Longfellow  is  quietly  at  Nahant.  His  translation 
of  Dante  is  finished,  but  will  not  be  completely  pub- 
lished until  the  year  1865,  that  being  the  600th  anniver- 
sary since  the  death  of  the  great  Italian.  Dr.  Holmes 
was  never  in  healthier  mood  than  at  present.  His  ora- 
tion delivered  before  a  large  audience  upon  the  Fourth 
of  July  this  year  places  him  high  in  the  rank  of  native 
orators.  It  is  a  little  doubtful  how  soon  he  will  feel  like 
writing  again.  He  has  contributed  much  during  the 
last  two  years  to  the  "Atlantic"  magazine.  He  may 
well  take  a  temporary  rest. 

Mr.  Lowell  is  not  well.  He  is  now  travelling.  Mr. 
Hawthorne  is  in  Concord.  He  has  just  completed  a 
volume  of  English  Sketches  of  which  a  few  have  been 
printed  in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly."  He  will  dedicate 
the  volume  to  Franklin  Pierce,  the  Democrat  —  a  most 
unpopular  thing  just  now,  but  friendship  of  the  purest 


14  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

stimulates  him,  and  the  ruin  in  prospect  for  his  book 
because  of  this  resolve  does  not  move  him  from  his 
purpose.  Such  adherence  is  indeed  noble.  Hawthorne 
requires  all  that  popularity  can  give  him  in  a  pecuniary- 
way  for  the  support  of  his  family. 

The  "Atlantic  Monthly"  is  at  present  an  interesting 
feature  of  America.  Purely  literary,  it  has  nevertheless 
a  subscription  list,  daily  increasing,  of  32,000.  Of  course 
the  editor's  labors  are  not  slight.  We  have  been  waiting 
for  Mr.  Emerson  to  publish  his  new  volume  containing 
his  address  upon  Henry  Thoreau ;  but  he  is  careful  of 
words  and  finds  many  to  be  considered  again  and  again, 
until  it  is  almost  impossible  to  extort  a  manuscript  from 
his  hands.   He  has  written  but  little,  of  late. 

'July  2S.  —  George  William  Curtis  has  done  at  least 
one  great  good  work.  He  has  by  a  gentle  but  con- 
tinuously brave  pressure  transformed  the  "Harper's 
Weekly,"  which  was  semi-Secession,  into  an  anti-slavery 
and  Republican  journal.  The  last  issue  is  covered  with 
pictures  as  well  as  words  which  tend  to  ameliorate  the 
condition  of  the  colored  race.  Mr.  Curtis's  own  house 
at  Statcn  Island  has  been  threatened  by  the  mob; 
therefore  his  wife  and  children  came  last  week  to  New 
England.  I  fear  the  death  of  Colonel  Shaw,  her  brother, 
commanding  the  54th  Massachusetts  (colored  infantry), 
will  induce  them  to  return  home.  His  death  is  one  of  our 
severest  strokes. 

July  31,  1863.  —  Wc  have  been  in  Concord  this  week, 
making  a  short  visit  at  the  Hawthorncs*.  He  has  just 
Hnishcd  his  volume  of  English  Sketches,  about  to  be 


HOUSE  AND  HOSTESS  15 

dedicated  to  Franklin  Pierce.  It  is  a  beautiful  incident 
in  Hawthorne's  life,  the  determination  at  all  hazards 
to  dedicate  this  book  to  his  friend.  Mr.  P.'s  politics 
at  present  shut  him  away  from  the  faith  of  patriots,  but 
Hawthorne  has  loved  him  since  college  days  and  he  will 
not  relent.^   Mrs.  Hawthorne  is  the  stay  of  the  house. 

To 
FRANKLIN   PIERCE, 

AS  A  SLTOnr  MEMORIAL  OF  A  COLLBQE  FRIEITDSTTir,  PROLONGED 

THROUGH   MANHOOD,  AND   BETAIOTNO  ALL  ITS  VITALITT 

IN  OCR  AUTUMNAL  TEARS, 

CMs  V^luvxt   (8  SnscTlbeU 

Br  NATHANIEL  HAWTHOR?fE. 

The  Ofending  Dedication 

The  wood-work,  the  tables  and  chairs  and  pedestals, 
are  all  ornamented  by  her  artistic  hand  or  what  she  has 
prompted  her  children  to  do.  Una  is  full  of  exquisite 
maidenhood.  Julian  was  away,  but  his  beautiful  illu- 
minations lay  upon  the  table.  The  one  illustrating  a  por- 
tion of  King  Arthur's  address  to  Queen  Guinevere 
(Tennyson)  was  remarkably  fine. 

All  this  takes  one  back  into  a  past  sufficiently  re- 
mote. The  1859-60  diary  of  travel  achieves  the  more 
remarkable  spectacle  of  Mrs.  Fields  in  conversation 
with  Leigh  Hunt  less  than  two  months  before  he  died, 

^  About  two  months  later,  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  in  her  diary:  "Emerson  says 
Hawthorne's  book  is  'pellucid  but  not  deep.'  He  has  cut  out  the  dedication 
and  letter,  as  others  have  done." 


i6  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

and  reporting  the  very  words  of  Shelley  to  this  friend 
of  his.  They  may  be  found  in  the  "Biographical 
Notes"  published  by  Mrs.  Fields  after  her  husband's 
death.  Shelley  says,  "Hunt,  we  write  /o:r-songs;  why 
shouldn't  we  write  hate-songs  ?"  And  Hunt,  recalling 
the  remark,  adds,  "He  said  he  meant  to  some  day, 
poor  fellow."  Perhaps  one  of  his  subjects  would  have 
been  the  second  Mrs.  Godwin,  for,  according  to  Hunt, 
he  disliked  her  particularly,  believing  her  untrue,  and 
used  to  say  that  when  he  was  obliged  to  dine  with  her 
"he  would  lean  back  in  his  chair  and  languish  into 
hate."  Then,  wrote  Mrs.  Fields,  "he  said  no  one  could 
describe  Shelley.  He  always  was  to  him  as  if  he  came 
from  the  planet  Mercury,  bearing  a  winged  wand 
tipped  with  flame."  It  is  now  an  even  century  since 
the  death  of  Shelley,  and  here  we  find  one  of  the  older 
generation  of  our  own  time  talking,  as  it  were,  with 
him  at  but  a  single  remove.  Almost  the  reader  is 
persuaded  to  ask  of  Mrs.  Fields  herself,  "Ah,  did  you 
once  sec  Shelley  plain  ?" 

Thus  from  the  records  of  bygone  years  many  re- 
membered figures  might  be  summoned ;  but  the  evo- 
cations already  made  will  suflice  to  indicate  the  point  of 
vantage  at  which  Mrs.  Fields  stood  as  a  diarist,  and  to 
set  the  scene  for  the  display  of  separate  friendships 


Ill 

DR.  HOLMES,  THE  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBORS 

If  any  familiar  face  should  appear  at  the  front  of  the 
procession  that  constantly  crossed  the  threshold  of 
148,  Charles  Street,  it  should  be  that  of  Dr.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  for  many  years  a  near  neighbor,  and 
to  the  end  of  his  life  a  devoted  visitor  and  friend.  Here, 
then,  is  an  unpublished  letter  written  from  his  summer 
retreat  while  Fields  was  still  actively  associated  with 
the  "Old  Corner  Bookstore"  of  Ticknor,  Reed,  and 
Fields,  and  in  the  year  before  his  marriage  with  Annie 
Adams :  — 

Pitts  FIELD,  Sept^  6th,  1853 
My  dear  Mr.  Fields  :  — 

Thank  you  for  the  four  volumes,  and  the  authors  of 
three  of  them  through  you.  You  did  not  remember 
that  I  patronized  you  to  the  extent  of  Aleck  before  I 
came  up ;  never  mind,  I  can  shove  it  round  among  the 
young  farmeresses  and  perhaps  help  to  work  off  the 
eleventh  thousand  of  the  most  illustrious  of  all  the 
Smiths. 

I  shall  write  to  Hillard  soon.  I  have  been  reading 
his  book  half  the  time  today  and  with  very  great  pleas- 
ure.    I  am  delighted  with  the  plan  ot  it  —  practical  in- 

^  The  greater  part  of  this  chapter  appeared  in  the  Yale  Review  for  April, 
1918. 


i8  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

formation  such  as  the  traveller  that  is  to  be  or  that  has 
been  wishes  for,  with  poetical  description  enough  to  keep 
the  imagination  alive,  and  sound  American  thought 
to  give  it  manly  substance.  It  is  anything  but  -x  flash 
book,  but  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  it  will 
have  a  permanent  and  very  high  place  in  travelling 
literature.  Many  things  have  pleased  me  exceedingly, 
—  when  I  have  read  a  little  more  I  shall  try  to  tell  him 
what  pleases  me  most^ —  as  I  suppose  like  most  authors 
he  likes  as  many  points  for  his  critical  self-triangula- 
tion  as  will  come  unasked  for. 

Hawthorne's  book  has  been  not  devoured,  but  bolted 
by  my  children.  I  have  not  yet  had  a  chance  at  it,  but 
I  don't  doubt  I  shall  read  it  with  as  much  gusto  as  they, 
when  my  turn  comes.  When  you  write  tc  him,  thank 
him  if  you  please  for  me,  for  I  suppose  he  will  hardly 
expect  any  formal  acknowledgment. 

I  bloomed  out  into  a  large  smile  of  calm  delight  on 
opening  the  delicate  little  "Epistle  Dedicatory"  where- 
in your  name  is  embalmed.  I  cannot  remember  that 
our  friend  has  tried  that  pace  before;  he  wrote  some 
pleasing  lines  I  remember  to  Longfellow  on  the  ship  in 
which  he  was  to  sail  when  he  went  to  Europe  some 
years  —  a  good  many  —  ago. 

Don't  be  too  proud  !  Wait  until  you  get  a  prose  dedi- 
cation from  a  poet,  —  if  you  have  not  got  one  already,  — 
and  then  consider  yourself  immortal. 

Yours  most  truly, 

O.  W.  Holmes 


AN  EARLY  PHOTOGRAPH  OF  DR.  HOLMES 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    19 

This  letter  contains  several  provocations  to  curiosity. 
"Aleck,  .  .  .  the  most  illustrious  of  all  the  Smiths," 
was  obviously  Alexander  Smith,  the  Scottish  poet  of 
enormous  but  strictly  contemporaneous  vogue,  in  whom 
the  English  reviewers  of  the  time  detected  a  kinship  to 
Tennyson,  Keats,  Shelley,  and  Shakespeare.  George  S. 
Hillard's  new  book  was  "Six  Months  in  Italy,"  and 
Hawthorne's,  "not  devoured,  but  bolted"  by  the 
Holmes  children,  was  "Tanglewood  Tales."  The  "deli- 
cate little  'Epistle  Dedicatory'"  has  been  found  elu- 
sive. 

From  this  early  letter  of  Dr.  Holmes  a  seven-league 
step  may  be  taken  to  a  passage  in  a  diary  Mrs.  Fields 
was  writing  in  i860,  —  the  year  following  the  removal 
of  the  Holmes  household  from  Montgomery  Place  to 
Charles  Street,  —  before  her  long  unbroken  series  of 
journals  began.  The  occasion  described  was  one  of 
those  frequent  breakfasts  in  the  Fields  dining-room, 
which  bespoke,  in  the  term  of  a  later  poet,  the  "wide 
unhaste"  of  the  period.  Of  the  guests,  N.  P.  Willis 
was  then  at  the  top  of  his  distinction  as  a  New  York 
editor ;  George  T.  Davis,  a  lawyer  of  Greenfield,  Mass- 
achusetts, afterwards  of  Portland,  Maine,  a  classmate 
of  Dr.  Holmes,  was  reputed  one  of  the  most  charming 
table-companions  and  wits  of  his  day :  the  tributes  to 
his  memory  at  a  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  Histor- 
ical Society  after  his  death  in  1877  stir  one's  envy  of  his 
contemporaries ;  George  Washington  Greene  of  Rhode 
Island  was  perhaps  equally  known  as  the  friend  of 
Longfellow   and   as   the   grandson    and   biographer  of 


20  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

General  Nathanael  Greene ;  Whipple  was,  of  course, 
Edwin  P.  Whipple,  essayist  and  lecturer;  the  household 
of  three  was  completed  by  Mrs.  Fields's  sister,  Miss 
Lizzie  Adams. 

Thursday y  September  2i,  i860.  —  Equinoctial  clear- 
ing after  a  stormy  night  and  morning.  Willis  came  to 
breakfast,  and  Holmes  and  George  T.  Davis,  G.  W. 
Greene,  Whipple,  and  our  little  household  of  three. 
Holmes  talked  better  than  all,  as  usual.  Willis  played 
the  part  of  appreciative  listener.  G.  T.  Davis  told  won- 
derful stories,  and  Mr.  Whipple  talked  more  than 
usual.  Holmes  described  the  line  of  beauty  which  is 
made  by  any  two  persons  who  talk  together  congenially 
thus  --'"^^---',  whereas,  when  an  adverse  element  comes 
in,  it  proceeds  thus  /\  ;  and  by  and  by  one  which  has 
a  frightful  retrograde  movement,  thus  /  .  Then  blank 
despair  settles  down  upon  the  original  talker.  He  said 
people  should  dovetail  together  like  properly  built 
mahogany  furniture.  Much  of  all  this  congeniality  had 
to  do  with  the  physical,  he  said.    "Now  there  is  big 

Dr.  ;  he  and  I  do  very  well  together;  I  have  just 

two  intellectual  heart-beats  to  his  one."  Willis  said  he 
thought  there  should  be  an  essay  written  upon  the 
necessity  that  literary  men  should  live  on  a  more  con- 
centrated diet  than  is  their  custom.  "Impossible,"  said 
the  Professor,  "  there  is  something  behind  the  man  which 
drives  him  on  to  his  fate;  he  goes  as  the  steam-engine 
goes  and  one  might  as  well  say  to  the  engine  going  at 
the  rate  of  sixty  miles,  'you  had  better  stop  now,'  and 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    21 

so  make  it  stop,  as  to  say  it  to  a  man  driven  on  by  a  vital 
preordained  energy  for  work."  Each  man  has  a  phil- 
osophical coat  fitted  to  his  shoulders,  and  he  did  not 
expect  to  find  it  fitting  anybody  else. 

At  another  breakfast,  in  1861,  we  find,  besides  the 
favorite  humorist  of  the  day,  Dr.  Holmes's  son  and 
namesake,  then  a  young  ofiicer  in  the  Union  army,  now 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

Sunday y  December  8,  1861. — Yesterday  morning 
**  Artemus  Ward,"  Mr.  Browne,  breakfasted  with  us,  also 
Dr.  Holmes  and  the  lieutenant,  his  son.  We  had  a 
merry  time  because  Jamie  was  in  grand  humor  and  rep- 
resented people  and  incidents  in  the  most  incomparable 
manner.  "Why,"  said  Dr.  Holmes  to  him  afterward, 
"you  must  excuse  me  that  I  did  not  talk,  but  the  truth 
is  there  is  nothing  I  enjoy  so  much  as  your  anecdotes, 
and  whenever  I  get  a  chance  I  can't  help  listening  to 
them."  The  Professor  complimented  Artemus  upon  his 
great  success  and  told  him  the  pleasure  he  had  received. 
Artemus  twinkled  all  over,  but  said  little  after  the  Pro- 
fessor arrived.  He  was  evidently  immensely  possessed 
by  him.  The  young  lieutenant  has  mostly  recovered 
from  his  wound  and  speaks  as  if  duty  would  recall  him 
soon  to  camp.  He  will  go  when  the  time  comes,  but 
home  evidently  never  looked  half  so  pleasant  before. 
Poor  fellows !  Heaven  send  us  peace  before  long  1 

The  finely  bound  copy  of  Dr.  Holmes's  Fourth  of 
July  Oration  at  the  Boston  City  Celebration  of  1863, 


22  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

to  which  the  following  passage  refers,  is  one  of  the  rari- 
ties sought  by  American  book-collectors.  It  was  a  prac- 
tice of  Dr.  Holmes  at  this  time  to  have  his  public 
speeches  set  up  in  large,  legible  type  for  his  own  reading 
at  their  delivery.  One  of  these,  an  address  to  the  alumni 
of  Harvard  on  July  16,  1863,  with  the  inscription, 
"Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  to  his  friend  James  T.  Fields. 
One  of  six  copies  printed,"  is  found  among  the  Charles 
Street  papers,  and  contributes,  like  the  passage  that 
follows,  to  the  sense  of  pleasant  intimacy  between  the 
neighboring  houses. 

Jugust  3,  1863.  —  Dr.  Holmes  dropped  in  last  night 
about  his  oration  which  the  City  Council  have  had 
printed  and  superbly  bound.  He  has  addressed  it  to 
the  "Common  Council"  instead  of  the  "City  Council," 
and  he  is  much  disturbed.  J.  T.  F.  told  him  it  made  but 
small  consequence,  and  he  went  off  comforted.  One  of 
the  members  of  the  Council  told  Mr.  F.  it  was  amusing 
to  see  "the  Professor"  while  this  address  was  passing 
through  the  press.  He  was  so  afraid  something  wouKl 
be  wrong  that  he  would  C(jme  in  to  see  about  it  half  a 
dozen  times  a  day,  until  it  seemed  as  if  he  considered 
this  small  oration  of  more  consequence  than  the  affairs 
of  the  state.  Yet  laugh  as  they  may  about  these  little 
peculiarities  of  "our  Professor,"  he  is  a  most  wonderful 
man. 

In  explanation  of  the  ensuing  bit,  it  need  only  be 
said  that  in  October  of  1863  Senorita  Isabella  Cubas 


/^l...,^^     ^^.^t^c^^-Z^   /^i^^^M.^ 


Brotkeks  of  the  Association  of  the  AluMxNi 

It  is  your  misfortune  and  mine  that  you  must  accept 
my  scr\-iccs  as  your  presiding  officer  in  the  place  of  your 
honored  President.  I  need  hardly  say  hov/  unwillingly  it  is 
that  for  the  second  time  I  find  myself  in  this  trying  position ; 
called  upon  to  fill  as  I  best  may  the  place  of  one  whose 
presence  and  bearing,  whose  courtesy,  whose  dignity,  whose 
scholarship,  whose  standing  among  the  distinguished  children 
of  the  University,  lit  him  alike  to  guide  your  councils  and 
to  grace  your  festivals.  The  name  of  AVinthrop  has  been  so 
long  associated  with  the  State  and  with  the  College,  that  to 
sit  under  liis  mild  empire  is  like  resting  beneath  one  of  these 
wide-branching  elms,  the  breadth  oi  whoso  shade  is  only  a 
measure  of  the  hold  its  roots  have  talceu  in  the  soil. 

In  the  midst  of  civil  strife  we,  the  children  of  this  our 
common  mother,  have  come  together  in  peace.  And  surely 
there  never  was  a  time  when  we  more  needed  a  brief  respite 
in  some  chosen  place  of  refuge,  some  unviolated  sanctuary, 
from  the  cares  and  anxieties  of  our  daily  existence,  than  at 
this  very  hour.  Om-  life  has  grown  haggard  with  excitement. 
The  rattle  of  dimns,  the  march  of  regiments,  the  gallop  of 
squadrons,  the  roar  of  artillery,  seem  to  have  been   contin- 


Reduced  facsimile  of  first  page  of  Dr.  Holmes's  1863  Address 
to  the  Alumni  of  Harvard 


24  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

was  appearing  at  the  Boston  Theatre  in  "The  Wizard 
Skiff,  or  the  Massacre  of  Scio,"  and  other  pantomimes. 
"The  Wizard  Skiff,"  according  to  the  "Advertiser," 
was  given  on  the  fourteenth.  On  the  sixteenth,  a  char- 
acteristic announcement  read:  "At  X  past  8  Senorita 
Cubas  will  dance  La  Madrilena."  The  tear  of  Dr. 
Holmes  at  the  spectacle  may  be  remembered  with  the 
"poetry  and  religion"  anecdote  of  Emerson,  Margaret 
Fuller,  and  Fanny  Ellsler. 

October  i6,  1863.  —  Mr.  F.  went  in  two  evenings  since 
to  find  Professor  Holmes.  His  wife  said  he  was  out.  "  I 
don't  know  where  he  is  gone,  I  am  sure,  Mr.  Fields," 
she  said  in  her  eager  way,  "but  he  said  he  had  finished 
his  work  and  asked  if  he  might  go,  and  I  told  him  he 
might,  though  he  would  not  tell  where  he  was  going." 

Yesterday  the  "where"  transpired.  "By  the  way," 
said  the  Professor,  "have  you  seen  that  little  poem  by 
Mrs.  Waterston  upon  the  death  of  Colonel  Shaw,  'To- 
gether' .''  It  made  me  cry.  However,  I  don't  know  how 
much  that  means,  for  I  went  to  see  the  'beautiful 
Cubas'  in  a  pantomime  the  other  night,  and  the  first 
thing  I  knew  do^^n  came  a  great  round  fat  tear  and 
went  splosh  on  the  ground.    Wasn't  I  provoked!" 

The  next  fragment  is  neither  a  letter  nor  a  passage 
from  the  diary,  but  a  bit  of  excellent  fooling,  in  Dr. 
Holmes's  handwriting,  on  a  sheet  of  note  paper.  The 
meteorological  records  of  1864  would  probably  show 
that  there  were  heavy  rains  in  the  course  of  the  year. 


BOSTON  THEATRE 


f^m  STAR  UHOIMD! 


SEMORlTi    ISIABEI.1.4 


iwTioricii««  HR  TO  THB  priLio  iir 

ffiC2^  Another  Character ! 

SREiTJItflSTE. 

WIW  SCENES,  MUSIC  AND  STARTLING  MECHAN- 
ICAL  EFFECTS! 

WOLFO MrW.  H.  EDGAR 

Wednesday  Evening,  October  14, 1863, 

Will  be  pn-formed  t^  L«geiulftr>  frtmi,  in  3  »oto.  utitled  th*: 

WIZil  SKIFF! 

Or— The  Massacre  of  Scio. 

ALEXA 8ENORITA  ISABELLA  CUBA8 


W    H    EDOAR 

.  .  .W.  H.  Wlimll*7  I  Micb»el «  .  H   T)mDTon 

Court  BwfUMe W.  U.  Hublm  |  Acutuiui Y  O.  8»Tige 

Voo  WatUlsdorf W   Scmllu  I  Fritr B»nj 

A«BMt) N.  T.  P»Teiiport  I  P«liiw Miss  BUnch*  Grmy 

OuinU  Greek  Sulon  tod  Pirtt«. 
ACT  nSST-OUOK  FtRATBS-  RKlfOBZVOCB. 
ACT  ■■OOWD-THa  WOABS   aSJTF. 

ACtTBimD-TmRSLZnc  kxplosioh  or  thk  wtzahd-s  OAV»-A»p«ir- 

•OM  ofttis  Wlaard's  SklfT,  under  rull  B«U-R«scae  of  Alex*  ft   Conjt«ntlii« 
*Qt  of  Victory , 


Of  HuilcftlBAleotlons.    L«»der,  F.  Suck. 


FROM  THE  PLAY-BILL  OF  THE  NIGHT  OF 
DR.  HOLMES'S    "GREAT  ROUND  FAT  TEAR" 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    25 

From  Dr.  Holmes's  interest  in  the  tracing  of  Dr.  John- 
son's footsteps  an  even  century  before  his  own,  it  is 
easy  to  imagine  his  fancy  playing  about  the  rainfall  of 
the  century  ahead.  I  cannot  find  that  this  jeii  d' esprit, 
with  its  entirely  characteristic  flavor  of  the  "Breakfast 
Table,"  was  ever  printed  by  its  author. 

Letter  Jrom  the  last  man  left  by  the  Deluge  of  the  year  1 964 
to  the  last  woman  left  by  the  same 

My  dear  Sole  Survivoress  :  — 

Love  is  natural  to  the  human  breast.  The  passion 
has  seized  me,  and  you,  fortunately,  cannot  doubt  as 
to  its  object. 

Adored  one,  fairest,  and  indeed  only  individual  of 
your  sex,  can  you,  could  you  doubt  that  if  the  world 
still  possessed  its  full  complement  of  inhabitants, 
823,060,413  according  to  the  most  recent  estimate,  I 
should  hesitate  in  selecting  you  from  the  4ii,53o,2o6>^ 
females  in  existence  previous  to  the  late  accident  ?  Be- 
lieve it  not  1  Trust  not  the  deceivers  who  —  but  I  for- 
get the  late  melancholy  occurrence  for  the  moment. 

It  is  still  damp  in  our  —  I  beg  your  pardon  —  in  my 
neighborhood.  I  hope  you  are  careful  of  your  precious 
health  —  so  much  depends  upon  it !  The  dodo  is  ex- 
tinct —  what  if  Man  —  but  pardon  me.  Let  me  recom- 
mend long  india-rubber  boots  —  they  will  excite  no 
remark,  for  reasons  too  obvious  to  mention. 

May  I  hope  for  a  favorable  answer  to  my  suit  by  the 
bearer  of  this  message,  the  carrier-goose,  who  was  with 


26  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

me  (luring  the  rainy  season  in  the  top  of  the  gigantic 
pine  ? 

If  any  more  favored  suitor  —  What  am  I  saying?    If 


Facsimile  of  the  Conclusion  of  Vliitnus  Snmh's  Declaration 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    27 

any  recollection  of  the  past  is  to  come  between  me  and 
happiness,  break  it  gently  to  me,  for  my  nerves  have 
been  a  good  deal  tried  by  the  loss  of  the  human  species 
(with  the  exception  of  ourselves)  and  there  is  something 
painful  in  the  thought  of  shedding  tears  in  a  world  so 
thoroughly  saturated  with  liquid. 
I  am 

(by  the  force  of  circumstances) 
Your  Only  lover  and  admirer 

Ultimus  Smith 
0.  W.  H.  Fixit. 

A  few  brief  items  of  May  of  1864  bring  back  a  time  of 
sadness  for  all  the  friends  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

May  II,  1864.  —  J.  T.  F.  went  to  see  Dr.  Holmes 
about  Hawthorne's  health.  The  latter  came  to  town 
looking  very  very  ill.  O.  W.  H.  thinks  the  shark's  tooth 
is  upon  him,  but  would  not  have  this  known.  Walked 
and  talked  with  him;  then  carried  him  to  "Metcalf's 
and  treated  him  to  simple  medicine  as  we  treat  each 
other  to  ice  cream." 

O.  W.  H.  picked  up  a  New  York  pamphlet  full  of 
sneers  against  Boston  "Mutual  Admiration  Society." 
"These  whipper-snappers  of  New  York  will  do  well  to 
take  care,"  he  says;  "the  noble  race  of  men  now  so 
famous  here  is  passing  down  the  valley  —  then  who  will 
take  their  places !  I  am  ashamed  to  know  the  names  of 
these  blackguards.  There  is ,  a  stick  of  sugar- 
candy  and  ,  who  is  not  even  a  gum-drop, 

and  plenty  like  them." 


28  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Sunday,  May  I4.  —  Terrible  days  of  war  and 
change.  .  .  . 

May  19.  —  Hawthorne  is  dead. 

Less  than  a  year  later  came  the  record  of  another 
death  —  unique  in  that  every  survivor  of  the  war-time 
seems  to  have  remembered  the  very  moment  and  cir- 
cumstances of  learning  the  overwhelming  fact. 

.Ipril  15,  1865.  —  Last  night  when  I  shut  this  book  I 
wondered  a  little  what  event  or  person  would  come  next, 
powerful  enough  to  compel  me  to  write  a  few  words; 
and  before  I  was  dressed  this  morning  the  news  of  the 
assassination  of  the  President  became  our  only  thought. 
The  Presiilent,  Seward,  and  his  son  ! 

Mrs.  Andrew  came  in  before  nine  o'clock  to  ask  if 
we  thought  it  would  be  expected  of  her  to  receive  "the 
Club"  on  Monday.  We  decided  "No,"  immediately, 
which  chimed  with  her  desire. 

The  city  is  weighed  down  by  sadness.  But  Dr. 
Holmes  expresses  his  philosophy  for  the  consolation  of 
all.  "It  will  unite  the  North,"  he  says.  " It  is  more  than 
likely  that  Lincoln  was  not  the  best  man  for  the  work 
of  re-construction,"  etc.  His  faith  keeps  him  from  the 
shadows  which  surround  many. 

But  it  is  a  black  day  for  us  all.  J.  Wilkes  Booth  is  in 
custody.    Poor  Edwin  is  in  Boston. 

.-Ipril  22.  —  False  report.  Up  to  this  date  J.  Wilkes 
Booth  has  not  been  taken.  A  reward  of  nearly  ^200,000 
is  set  upon  his  head,  but  we  believe  him  to  have  fled 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    29 

into  Maryland  or  farther  south,  with  some  marauding 
party. 

Henry  Howard  Brownell,  the  author  of  "War  Lyrics," 
appears  in  the  following  extract,  with  Dr.  Holmes, 
whose  high  opinion  of  this  singer  of  naval  battle  was 
set  forth  in  print  of  no  uncertain  tone.  Of  Forceythe 
Willson,  a  poet,  not  yet  thirty  years  old,  of  whom  great 
things  were  expected,  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  later  in  the 
same  volume  of  the  journal :  "He  affects  me  like  a  wild 
Tennyson.  ...  He  is  an  indigenous  growth  of  our 
middle  states.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Horace  Mann,  and 
appreciated  him." 

April  29,  1865.  —  Club  dinner  for  J.  T.  F.  Mr. 
Brownell  was  present,  author  of  "The  Bay  Fight,"  as 
Dr.  Holmes's  guest.  Dr.  H.  said  privately  to  us,  "Well, 
't  ain't  much  for  some  folks  to  do  what  I  'm  doing  for 
this  man,  but  it 's  a  good  deal  for  me.  I  don't  like  that 
kind  of  thing,  you  know.  I  find  myself  unawares  in 
something  the  position  of  a  lion-hunter,  which  is  un- 
pleasant !  11 "  He  has  lately  discovered  that  Forceythe 
Willson,  the  author  of  a  noble  poem  called  the  "  Color 
Sergeant"  ["The  Old  Sergeant"],  has  been  living  two 
years  in  Cambridge.  He  wrote  to  him  and  told  him  how 
much  he  liked  his  poem  and  said  he  would  like  to  make 
his  acquaintance.  "I  will  be  at  home,"  the  young  poet 
replied  to  the  elder,  "at  any  time  you  may  appoint  to 
call  upon  me."  This  was  a  little  strange  to  O.  W.  H., 
who  rather  expected,  as  the  elder  who  was  extending 


so  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

the  right  hand,  to  be  called  upon,  I  suppose,  although 
he  did  not  say  so.  He  found  a  fortress  of  a  man,  "shy 
as  Hawthorne,"  and  "one  who  had  not  learned  that 
the  eagle's  wings  should  sometimes  be  kept  down,  as  we 
people  who  live  in  the  world  must,"  said  the  Professor 
to  me  afterward.   "  In  State"  by  F.  W.  is  a  great  poem. 

More  than  a  year  later  is  found  this  characteristic 
glimpse  of  Dr.  Holmes  in  the  elation  of  finishing  one  of 
his  books. 

iredtJCscJay^  Scptejiibtr  12,  1866.  —  After  an  hour  J. 
went  in  to  see  Dr.  Holmes.  This  was  important.  He  had 
promised  a  week  ago  to  hear  him  read  his  new  romance, 
and  he  did  not  wish  to  show  anything  but  the  lively 
interest  he  really  feels.  .  .  . 

Jamie  returned  in  two  hours  perfectly  enchanted. 
The  novel  exceeded  his  hopes.  No  diminishing  of  power 
is  to  be  seen ;  on  the  contrary  it  seems  the  perfect  fruit 
of  a  life.  It  is  to  be  called  "The  Guardian  Angel." 
Four  parts  are  already  completed  and  large  books  of 
notes  stand  ready  for  use  and  reference.  Mrs.  Holmes 
came  in  to  tell  Mr.  Fields  she  wished  Wendell  would  not 
publish  anything  more.  He  would  only  call  down  news- 
paper criticism,  and  where  was  the  use.  "Well,  Amelia, 
I  have  written  something  now  which  the  critics  won't 
complain  of.  You  see  it's  better  than  anything  I  have 
ever  done."  "Oh,  that 's  what  you  always  say,  Wendell, 
but  I  wish  you'd  let  it  alone!"  "But  don't  you  see, 
Amelia,  I  shall  make  money  by  it,  and  that  won't  come 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR   31 

amiss."  "No  indeed,  Mr.  Fields,  not  in  these  times  with 
our  family,  you  know."  "But  there  's  one  thing,"  said 
the  little  Professor,  suddenly  looking  up  to  Mr.  Fields ; 
"if  anything  should  happen  to  me  before  I  get  the  story 
done,  you  would  n't  come  down  upon  the  widder  for 
the  money,  would  you  now?"  Then  they  had  a  grand 
laugh  all  round.  He  is  very  nervous  indeed  about  his 
work  and  read  it  with  great  reluctance,  yet  desired  to 
do  so.  He  had  read  it  to  no  one  as  yet  until  Mr.  Fields 
should  hear  it. 

Wendell,  his  son,  had  just  returned  from  England, 
bringing  a  young  English  Captain  of  Artillery  home 
with  him  for  the  night,  the  hotels  being  crowded.  The 
captain's  luggage  was  in  the  entry.  The  Professor  drew 
J.  aside  to  show  him  how  the  straps  of  the  luggage 
were  arranged  in  order  to  slip  in  the  address-card. 
"  D'  ye  see  that  —  good,  ain't  it  ?  I  've  made  a  drawing 
of  that  and  am  going  to  have  some  made  like  it." 

Near  the  end  of  1 866,  Mrs.  Fields,  after  a  few  words 
of  realization  that  something  lies  beyond  the  age  of 
thirty,  pictures  "the  Autocrat"  at  her  own  breakfast- 
table,  with  General  John  Meredith  Read,  afterwards 
minister  to  Greece,  and  already,  before  that  age  of 
thirty  which  the  diarist  was  just  completing,  an  impor- 
tant figure  in  the  military  and  political  life  of  New  York. 
A  few  sentences  from  the  following  passage  are  found 
in  Mrs.  Fields's  article  on  Dr.  Holmes,  which  appeared 
first  in  the  "Century  Magazine,"  and  then  in  "Authors 
and  Friends." 


32  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

It  comes  over  me  to  put  down  here  and  now  the  fact 
that  this  year  for  the  first  time  others  perceived,  as 
well  as  myself,  that  I  have  passed  the  freshness  and 
lustre  of  youth  —  but  I  do  not  feel  the  change  as  I 
once  thought  I  must  —  life  is  even  sweeter  than  ever 
and  richer  though  I  can  still  remember  the  time  when 
thirty  years  seemed  the  desirable  limit  of  life —  now  it 
opens  before  me  full  of  uncompleted  labor,  full  of  riches 
and  plans  —  the  wealth  of  love,  the  plans  of  eternity. 

Friday  tnoniiug.  —  Professor  Holmes  and  Adjutant 
General  Read  of  New  York  (a  young  man  despite  his 
title)  breakfasted  here  at  eight  o'clock.  They  were  both 
here  punctually  at  quarter  past  eight,  which  was  early 
for  the  season,  especially  as  the  General  was  late  out,  at 
a  ball,  last  night.  He  was  only  too  glad  of  the  chance, 
however,  to  meet  Dr.  Holmes,  and  would  have  made  a 
far  greater  effort  to  accomplish  it.  The  talk  at  one  time 
turned  upon  Dickens.  Dr.  Holmes  said  he  thought 
him  a  greater  genius  than  Thackeray  and  was  never 
satisfied  with  admiring  his  wondrous  powers  of  observa- 
tion and  fertility  of  reproduction ;  his  queer  knack  at 
making  scenes,  too,  was  noticeable,  but  especially  the 
power  of  beginning  from  the  smallest  externals  and 
describing  a  man  to  the  life  though  he  might  get  no 
farther  than  the  shirt-button,  for  he  always  failed  in 
profound  analysis.  Hawthorne,  beginning  from  within, 
was  his  contrast  and  counterpart.  But  the  two  qualities 
which  Dickens  possesses  and  which  the  world  seems  to 
take  small  account  of,  but  which  mark  his  peculiar 
greatness,  are  the  minuteness  of  his  observations  and 


MRS.   FIELDS 
crayon  portrait  made  by  Rowse 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    33 

his  endless  variety.  Thackeray  had  sharp  corners  in 
him,  something  which  led  you  to  see  he  could  turn 
round  short  upon  you  some  day,  although  sadness  was 
an  impressive  element  in  his  character  —  perhaps  a 
sadness  belonging  to  genius.  Hawthorne's  sadness  was 
a  part  of  his  genius  —  tenderness  and  sadness. 

On  Monday,  February  25,  1867,  Mrs.  Fields  made 
note  of  the  Saturday  Club  dinner  of  two  days  before,  at 
which  the  guests  were  George  William  Curtis,  "Petro- 
leum V.  Nasby,"  and  Dr.  Hayes  of  Arctic  fame,  of 
whom  Mrs.  Fields  had  written  a  few  days  before:  "He 
wears  a  corrugated  face,  and  his  slender  spirited  figure 
shows  him  the  man  for  such  resolves  and  expeditions. 
We  were  carried  away  like  the  hearers  of  an  Arabian 
tale  with  his  vivid  pictures  of  Arctic  life."  But  appar- 
ently he  was  not  the  chief  talker  at  the  Saturday  Club 
meeting,  for  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  of  it :  "  Dr.  Holmes  was 
in  great  mood  for  talk,  but  Lowell  was  critical  and  in- 
terrupted him  frequently.  'Now,  James,  let  me  talk 
and  don't  interrupt  me,'  he  once  said,  a  little  ruffled 
by  the  continual  strictures  on  his  conversation."  But 
by  the  time  that  Longfellow's  sixtieth  birthday  came 
round  on  the  following  Wednesday,  Dr.  Holmes  was 
ready  for  it  with  the  verses,  "In  gentle  bosoms  tried  and 
true,"  recorded  in  Longfellow's  diary,  and  for  another 
encounter  with  Lowell,  who  also  celebrated  the  day 
with  a  poem,  beginning  "I  need  not  praise  the  sweet- 
ness of  his  song."  Mrs.  Fields's  diary  records  her  hus- 
band's account  of  the  evening :  — 


34  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

February  28,  1867.  —  Thursday  morning.  Jamie 
had  a  most  brilliant  evening  at  Longfellow's.  A  note 
came  in  from  O.  \V.  H.  towards  night,  saying  he  was  full 
of  business  and  full  of  his  story,  but  he  must  go  to  L.'s. 
Lowell's  poem  in  the  morning  had  helped  to  stir  him.  J. 
reached  his  door  punctually  at  eight.  There  stood  the 
little  wonder  with  hat  and  coat  on  and  door  ajar,  his 
wife  beside  him.  "I  would  n't  let  him  go  with  anybody 
else,"  she  said.  "Mr.  Fields,  he  ought  not  to  go  out 
tonight ;  hear  him,  how  he  wheezes  with  the  asthma. 
Now,  Wendell,  vchcn  will  you  get  home?"  "Oh,"  said 
he,  "I  don't  know.  I  put  myself  into  Mr.  Fields's 
hands."  "Well,  Mr.  Fields,  how  early  can  you  get  him 
home?"  "About  twelve,"  was  the  answer.  "Now 
that  's  pretty  well,"  said  the  Doctor.  "Amelia,  go  in 
and  shut  the  door.  Mr.  Fields  will  take  care  of  me." 
So  between  fun  and  anxiety  they  chatted  away  until 
they  were  fairly  into  the  street  and  in  the  car.  "I  'vc 
been  doing  too  much  lately  between  my  lectures  and  my 
story,  and  the  fine  dinners  I  have  been  to,  and  I  ought 
not  to  go  out  tonight.  Why,  it  's  one  of  the  greatest 
compliments  one  man  ever  paid  another,  my  going  out 
to  I^ongfellow's  tonight.  By  the  way,  Mr.  Fields,  do  you 
appreciate  the  position  you  hold  in  our  time?  There 
never  was  anything  like  it.  Why,  I  was  nothing  but  a 
roaring  kangaroo  when  you  took  me  in  hand,  and  I 
thought  it  was  the  right  thing  to  stand  up  on  my  hind 
legs,  but  you  combed  me  down  and  put  me  in  proper 
shape.  Now  I  want  you  to  promise  me  one  thing.  We  're 
all  growing  old,  I  'm  near  sixty  myself;  by  and  by  the 


FIELDS,  THE  MAN  OF  BOOKS  AND  FRIENDSHIPS 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    35 

brain  will  begin  to  soften.  Now  you  must  tell  me  when 
the  egg  begins  to  look  addled.  People  don't  know  of 
themselves." 

He  had  been  to  two  large  dinners  lately,  one  at  G.  W. 
Wales's,  which  he  said  was  the  finest  dinner  he  had  ever 
seen,  the  most  perfect  in  all  its  appointments,  decorated 
with  the  largest  profusion  of  flowers,  in  as  perfect  taste 
as  he  had  ever  seen.  "Why,  even  the  chair  you  sat  in 
was  so  delicately  padded  as  to  give  pleasure  to  that 
v/eak  spot  in  the  back  which  we  all  inherit  from  the  fall 
of  Adam."  The  other  was  at  Mrs.  Charles  Dorr's,  where 
there  v/ere  sixteen  at  table  and  the  room  "for  heat  was 
like  the  black  hole  at  Calcutta,"  but  the  company  was 
very  brilliant.   Mr.  and  Mrs.  Winthrop,  Mrs.  Parkman, 

Dr.  Hayes,  etc.    He  sat  next  Mrs.  ;  says  she  is  a 

thorough-bred  woman  of  society,  the  daughter  of  a 
politician,  the  wife,  first  of  a  millionaire  and  now  of  a 
man  of  society.    "I  like  such  a  woman  now  and  then; 

she  never  makes  a  mistake."    Mrs. was  thoroughly 

canvassed  at  the  table,  "picked  clean  as  any  duck  for 
the  spit  and  then  roasted  over  a  slow  fire,"  as  O.  W.  H. 
afterward  remarked  to  Mrs.  Parkman,  who  is  a  very 
just  woman  and  who  weighed  her  well  in  the  balances. 
When  they  arrived  at  L.'s,  my  basket  of  flowers  stood 
surrounded  by  other  gifts,  and  Longfellow  himself  sat 
crowned  with  all  the  natural  loveliness  of  his  rare  nature. 
The  day  must  have  been  a  happy  one  for  him.  .  .  . 
O.  W.  H.  had  three  perfect  verses  of  a  little  poem  in 
his  hand  which  he  read,  and  then  Lowell  talked,  and 
they  had  great  merriment  and  delight  together. 


36  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

The  two  following  passages  from  the  diary  for  1868 
seem  to  indicate  that  Dr.  Holmes  made  a  double  use  of 
his  poem,  "Bill  and  Joe,"  written  in  this  year,  included 
in  his  "  Poems  of  the  Class  of  '29,"  and  according  to  the 
entry  of  July  17,  read  at  the  Harvard  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
dinner  of  1868  :  — 

'January  16,  1868.  —  We  had  just  finished  dinner 
when  Professor  Holmes  came  in  with  his  poem,  one  of 
the  annual  he  contributes  to  the  class-supper  of  the 
"Boys  of  '29."  He  read  it  through  to  us  with  feeling, 
his  voice  growing  tremulous  and  husky  at  times.  It  was 
pleasant  to  see  how  he  enjoyed  our  pleasure  in  it.  The 
talk  turned  naturally  after  a  little  upon  the  question  of 
Chief  Justice,  when  he  took  occasion  to  run  over  in  his 
mind  the  character  and  qualifications  of  some  of  our 
chief  barristers.  "As  for  Bigelow  ^  (who  has  just  gone 
out  of  office  and  it  is  his  successor  over  whom  they  are 
struggling),  as  for  Bigelow,  it  is  astonishing  to  see  how 
every  bit  of  that  man's  talent  has  been  brought  into  use; 
all  he  has  is  made  the  most  of.  Why,  he  's  like  some 
cooks,  give  'cm  a  horse  and  they  will  use  every  part  of 
him  except  the  shoes." 

Friday^  July  17,  1868.  —  Last  evening  Dr.  Holmes 
came  in  fresh  from  the  Phi  Beta  dinner  at  Cambridge.- 

'  George  Tyler  Bigelow,  of  the  \  larvarj  Cl.iss  of  1 829. 

*  Harvard  festivals  were  frequently  noted.  After  the  great  day  on  which 
Lowell  gave  his  Comnifmoration  Ode,  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  (July  22,  1 865) : 
"What  an  evcr-mcmoraMe  day,  the  one  at  Harvard  !  The  prayer  of  Phillips 
Brooks,  the  ode  of  lx)wcll,  the  address  of  Dr.  Putnam  and  the  Governor,  and 
the  heartfelt  verses  of  Holmes,  and  the  lovely  music  and  the  hymns.    But 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    37 

He  said,  "I  can't  stop  and  I  only  came  to  read  you  my 
verses  I  read  at  the  dinner,  they  made  such  a  queer  im- 
pression. I  did  n't  mean  to  go,  but  James  Lowell  was  to 
preside  and  sent  me  word  that  I  really  must  be  there,  so 
I  just  wrote  these  off,  and  here  they  are  —  I  don't  know 
that  I  should  have  brought  them  in  to  read  to  you,  but 
Hoar  declares  they  are  the  best  I  have  ever  done."  At 
length,  in  the  exquisite  orange  of  sunset,  he  read  those 
delightful  verses,  full,  full  of  feeling,  "Bill  and  Joe." 
We  did  not  wonder  the  Phi  Beta  boys  liked  them.  I 
shall  be  surprised  if  every  boy,  especially  those  who  find 
the  almond  blossoms  in  the  hair,  as  W.  says,  does  not 
like  them,  and  if  they  do  noi  win  for  him  a  more  uni- 
versal reputation  than  he  has  yet  won.  .  .  . 

I  was  impressed  last  night  with  the  nervous  energy  of 
O.  W.  H.  His  leg  by  a  slight  quiver  kept  time  to  the 
reading  of  his  verses,  and  his  talk  fell  before  and  after 
like  swift  rain.  He  does  not  go  away  from  town  but 
sways  between  Boston  and  Cambridge  all  these  perfect 
summer  days ;  receiving  yesterday,  the  hottest  day  of 
this  or  many  years.  Motley  at  dinner,  and  going  per- 
petually, and  writing  verses  and  letters  not  a  few.  His 
activity  is  wonderful ;  think  of  writing  letters  these 
warm  delicious  evenings  by  gaslight  in  a  small  front 
study  on  the  street !  It  hurts  him  less  than  his  wife, 
partly  because  the  intellectual  vivacity  and  excitement 

Lowell's  Ode ! !  How  it  overtops  the  whole  of  what  is  preserved  on  paper 
beside!  Charles  G.  Loring  presided.  'Awkwardly  enough  done,'  said 
O.  W.  H.;  'It  is  a  delicate  thing  to  introduce  a  poet,  he  should  be  delivered 
to  the  table  as  a  falconer  delivers  the  falcon  into  the  air,  but  Mr.  Loring 
puts  you  down  hard  on  the  table  —  ca-chunk. ' " 


38  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

keeps  him  up,  partly  because  he  is  physically  fitted  to 
bear  almost  everything  but  cold.  How  fortunate  for  the 
world  that  while  he  lives  he  should  continue  his  work  so 
faithfully.  He  will  have  no  successor,  at  least  for  many 
a  long  year,  after  we  have  all  gone  to  sleep  under  our 
green  counterpanes  and  Nature  has  tucked  us  up  v.ell 
in  yearly  violets. 

Earlier  in  the  year  Dr.  Holmes  and  Mrs.  Stowe  met 
in  Charles  Street. 

Wednesday  mornings  January  29,  1868.  —  Last  night 
Professor  Holmes,  Mrs.  Stowe,  her  daughter  Georgie, 
and  the  Howellses,  took  tea  here.  The  Professor  came 
early  and  was  in  good  talking  trim  —  presently  in  came 
Mrs.  Stowe,  and  they  fell  shortly  into  talk  upon  Home- 
opathy and  Allopathy.  He  grew  very  warm,  declared 
that  cases  cited  of  cures  proved  nothing,  and  we  were  all 
"incompetent"  to  judge  !  We  coukl  iK^t  but  be  amused 
at  his  heat,  for  we  were  more  or  less  believers  in  Home- 
opathy against  his  one  argument  for  Allopathy.  In  vain 
Mrs.  Stowe  and  I  tried  to  turn  and  stem  the  fiery  tide : 
Georgie  or  Mrs.  Howells  would  be  sure  to  sweep  us  back 
into  it  again.  However,  there  were  many  brilliant  things 
said,  and  sweet  and  good  and  interesting  things  too. 
The  Professor  told  us  one  curious  fact,  that  chemists  had 
in  vain  analyzed  the  poison  of  rattlesnakes  and  could 
not  discover  the  elements  of  destruction  it  undoubtedly 
possesses.  Also  that,  when  Indians  poison  their  arrows 
with  it,  they  hang  up  the  liver  of  a  white  wolf  ami  make 


DR.  HOLIN^ES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    39 

one  snake  after  another  bite  it  until  the  liver  is  entirely 
impregnated;  they  then  leave  it  to  dry  until  disinte- 
grated, when  they  moisten  and  apply  round  the  necks  of 
the  arrows  —  not  on  the  point.  He  had  a  long  quiet 
chat  with  Mrs.  Stowe  before  the  evening  ended.  They 
compared  their  early  Calvinistic  education  and  the 
effect  produced  upon  their  characters  by  such  training. 
Tuesday  J  April  13,  1869.  —  Dr.  Holmes  and  his  wife 
and  Mr.  Whittier  dined  here.  The  talk  was  free,  totally 
free  from  all  feeling  of  constraint,  as  it  could  not  have 
been  had  another  person  been  present.  Whittier  says  he 
is  afraid  of  strangers,  and  Dr.  Holmes  is  never  more  de- 
lightful than  under  just  such  auspices.  Dr.  Holmes 
asked  Whittier's  undisguised  opinion  of  Longfellow's 
"New  England  Tragedies"  —  "honest  opinion  now," 
said  he.  "Well,  I  liked  them,"  said  Whittier,  half 
reluctantly  —  evidently  he  had  found  much  that  was 
beautiful  and  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  times  of 
which  Longfellow  wrote,  and  their  passionless  character 
did  not  trouble  him  as  it  had  O.  W.  H.  Presently,  he 
added  that  he  was  surprised  to  find  how  he  had  pre- 
served almost  literally  the  old  text  of  the  old  books  he 
had  lent  Longfellow  twelve  years  ago,  and  had  meas- 
ured it  off  into  verse.  "Ah,"  said  O.  W.  H.,  "you 
have  said  the  severest  thing  after  all  —  'measured  off ' ; 
that  's  just  what  he  has  done.  It  is  one  of  the  easiest, 
the  very  commonest  tricks  of  the  rhymster  to  be  able  to 
do  this.  I  am  surprised  to  see  the  ease  with  which  I 
can  do  it  myself."  They  spoke  then  of  "Evangeline," 
which   both    agreed   in    awarding   unqualified   praise. 


40  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

"Only,"  said  Whitticr,  "I  always  wondered  there  was 
no  terrible  outburst  of  indignation  over  the  outrage 
done  to  that  poor  colony.  The  tide  of  the  story  runs 
as  smoothly  as  if  nothing  had  occurred.  I  long  thought 
of  working  up  that  story  myself,  but  I  am  glad  I  did 
not,  only  I  can't  understand  its  being  so  calm."  They 
talked  on  religious  questions  of  course,  the  Professor 
holding  that  sin  being  finite,  and  of  such  a  nature  that 
we  could  both  outgrow  it  and  root  it  up,  Whittier 
still  returning  to  the  ground  that  sin  was  a  "very  real 
thing." 

It  is  impossible  to  represent  the  clearness  and  swift- 
ness of  Dr.  Holmes's  talk.  The  purity  of  heart  and 
strength  of  endeavor  evident  in  the  two  poets  makes 
their  atmosphere  a  very  elevating  one  and  they  evi- 
dently naturally  rejoiced  in  each  other's  society. 

Mrs.  Holmes  had  not  been  out  to  dine  before  this 
winter.  Jamie  sent  us  a  pot  of  strawberries  growing, 
which  delighted  everybody. 

Before  the  following  passage  was  written,  in  1S71,  Dr. 
Holmes  had  moved  from  Charles  Street  to  Beacon 
Street ;  Mr.  Fields,  in  impaired  health,  had  retired  from 
active  business  as  a  publisher  and  was  devoting  himself 
chiefly  to  writing  and  lecturing;  and  Mrs.  Fields,  al- 
ready interested  in  the  establishment  of  Coffee  Houses 
for  the  p)oor  in  the  North  End  and  elsewhere,  had  begun 
the  notable  work  in  public  charities  to  which  her  ener- 
gies were  so  largely  given  for  the  remaining  forty-four 
years  of  her  life.    In  the  Cooperative  Workrooms,  still 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    41 

rendering  their  beneficent  services,  and  in  the  larger 
organization  of  the  Associated  Charities,  embodying  a 
principle  now  widely  adopted  throughout  the  land,  the 
labors  of  this  generous  spirit,  never  content  to  give  all 
it  had  to  the  gracious  life  within  its  own  four  walls,  have 
borne  enduring  fruits. 

1 87 1.  —  Thursday  afternoon  last  (June  22)  went  to 
Cambridge  for  a  few  visits,  and  coming  home  stopped 
at  Dr.  Holmes's,  at  his  new  house  on  Beacon  St.  Found 
them  both  at  home,  sitting  lonely  in  the  oriel  window 
looking  out  upon  a  glorious  sunset.  They  were  think- 
ing of  the  children  who  have  flown  out  of  their  nest. 
Dr.  Holmes  was  very  friendly  and  sweet.  He  talked 
most  affectionately  with  J.,  told  him  he  no  longer  felt 
a  spur  to  write  since  he  had  gone  out  of  business ;  he 
needed  just  the  little  touch  of  praise  and  encouragement 
he  used  to  administer  to  make  him  do  it ;  now  he  did  not 
think  he  should  ever  write  any  more  worth  mentioning. 
He  had  been  in  to  see  the  Coffee  House  and  entertained 
us  much  by  saying  he  met  President  Eliot  near  the  door 
one  day  just  as  he  was  going  in,  but  he  was  ashamed  of 
doing  so  until  they  had  parted  company.  There  was 
something  so  childlike  in  this  confession  that  we  all 
laughed  heartily  over  it.  However  he  got  in  at  last,  and 
"tears  as  big  as  onions  stood  in  my  eyes  when  I  saw 
what  had  been  accomplished."  "You  must  be  a  very 
happy  woman,"  he  went  on  to  say.  I  told  him  of  the 
new  one  in  Eliot  Street  about  to  be  opened  this  coming 
week. 


42  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

At  the  end  of  the  summer  of  187 1,  when  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
iMclds  were  beginning  to  learn  the  charms  of  the  North 
Shore  town  of  Manchester,  where  they  established  the 
"Gambrel  Cottage"  on  "Thunderbolt  Hill"  which 
gave  a  summer  synonym  to  the  hospitality  of  Charles 
Street,  they  journeyed  one  day  to  Nahant  for  a  mid- 
day dinner  with  Longfellow.  Here  Mrs.  Fields's  sister, 
Louisa,  Mrs.  James  H.  Beal,  was  a  neighbor  of  the  poet. 
Another  neighbor  was  the  late  George  Abbot  James, 
and  in  Longfellow's  diary  for  September  4,  1871,  is  the 
entry:  "Call  on  Dr.  Holmes  at  Mr.  James's.  Sumner 
still  there.  We  discuss  the  new  poets."  Mrs.  Fields 
reports  a  continuation  of  the  talk  with  the  same  friends. 

ITeduesdayy  September  6,  1871.  —  Dined  with  Mr. 
Longfellow  at  Nahant.  The  day  was  warm  with  a  soft 
south  wind  blowing,  and  as  we  crossed  the  beach  white 
waves  were  curling  up  the  sands.  .  .  .  The  dear  poet 
saw  us  coming  from  afar  and  walked  to  his  little  gate  to 
meet  us  with  such  a  sweet  cordial  welcome  that  it  was 
worth  going  many  a  mile  to  have  that  alone.  The  three 
little  ladies,  his  daughters,  and  Ernest's  wife,  were 
within,  but  they  came  warmly  forward  to  give  us  greet- 
ing; also  Mr.  Sam.  Longfellow  was  of  the  party.  A  few 
moments'  chat  in  the  little  parlor,  when  Longfellow  saw 
Holmes  coming  in  the  distance  (he  had  an  opera-glass, 
being  short-sighted,  and  was  sitting  on  the  piazza  with 
J.).  "Hullo!"  said  he,  "here  comes  Holmes,  and  all 
dressed  up  too,  with  flowers  in  his  button-hole."  Sure 
enough,  here  was  the  Professor  to  have  dinner  with  us 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR   43 

also.  He  was  full  of  talk  as  ever  and  looking  remark- 
ably well.  Longfellow  asked  with  much  interest  about 
Balaustion  and  Joaquin  Miller,  neither  of  which  he  had 
read.  Holmes  criticized  as  if  unbearable  and  beyond  the 
pale  of  decency  Browning's  cutting  of  words,  "Flower  o* 
the  pine,"  and  such  characteristic  passages.  Longfellow 
spoke  of  a  volume  of  poems  he  had  received  of  late  from 
England  in  which  "saw"  was  made  to  rhyme  with 
"more."  Holmes  said  Keats  often  did  that.  "Not  ex- 
actly, I  think,"  said  L.,  "'dawn'  and  'forlorn,'  per- 
haps." "Well,"  said  H.,  "when  I  was  in  college"  (I 
think  he  said  college,  certainly  while  at  Cambridge) 
"and  my  first  volume  was  about  to  appear,  Mrs.  Fol- 
som  saw  the  sheets  and  fortunately  at  the  very  last 
moment  for  correction  discovered  I  had  made  'for- 
lorn' rhyme  with 'gone,'  and  out  of  her  own  head  and 
without  having  time  to  consult  with  me  she  substituted 
'sad  and  wan.'"  ^  The  Professor  went  on  to  say  that  he 
must  confess  to  a  tender  feeling  of  regret  for  his  "so 
forlorn"  to  this  very  day,  but  he  supposed  every  writer 
of  poems  must  have  his  keen  regrets  for  the  numerous 
verses  he  could  recall  where  he  had  wrestled  with  the 
English  language  and  had  lost  something  of  his  thought 
in  his  struggle  with  the  necessities  of  art.  We  shortly 
after  went  to  dinner,  where  the  talk  still  continued  to 
turn  on  art  and  artists,  chiefly  musical,  the  divorcement 
of  music  and  thought ;  a  thinker  or  man  of  intellect 
in  listening  to  music  comes  to  a  comprehension  of  it, 

'  This  anecdote  of  the  revision  of  The  Last  Leaf,  written  in  1 831,  is  told 
a  little  differently  in  the  annotations  of  Holmes's  Complete  Works. 


44  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Holmes  said,  mediately,  but  a  musician  feels  it  directly 
through  some  gift  of  which  the  thinker  knows  nothing. 
Longfellow  always  recalls  with  intense  delight  hearing 
Gounod  sing  his  own  music  in  Rome  —  his  voice  was 
hardly  to  be  mentioned  among  the  fine  voices  of  the 
world,  indeed  it  was  small,  but  his  rendering  was  exquis- 
ite. Canvassing  T.  B.  Read's  poems  and  speaking  of 
"Sheridan's  Ride,"  which  has  been  so  highly  praised, 
"Yes,"  said  Holmes,  "but  there  are  very  poor  lines  in 
it,  but  how  often,  to  use  Scripture  phrase,  there  is  a  fly 
in  the  ointment."  The  talk  went  bowling  off  to  Pere 
Hyacinthe.  "He  was  very  pleasant,"  said  Holmes,  "it 
was  most  agreeable  to  meet  him,  but  you  could  only 
go  a  short  distance.  His  desire  was  to  be  a  good  Catho- 
lic, and  ours  is  of  course  quite  different.  It  was  like 
speaking  through  a  knot-hole  after  all." 

The  dumb  waiter  bounced  up.  "We  cannot  call  that 
a  dumb  waiter,"  said  L.,  "but  I  had  an  odd  dream  the 
other  night.  I  thought  Greene  (G.W.)  came  bouncing  up 
on  the  waiter  in  that  manner  and  stepped  off  in  a  most 
dignified  fashion  with  a  crushed  white  hat  on  his  head. 
He  said  he  had  just  been  to  drive  with  a  Spanish  lady  !" 

Sumner  (Charles)  came  up  to  the  piazza.  He  had 
dined  elsewhere  and  came  over  as  soon  as  possible  for  a 
little  talk.  Holmes  talked  on,  although  we  all  said, 
"Mr.  Sumner  —  here  is  Mr.  Sumner,"  without  per- 
ceiving that  the  noble  Senator  was  sitting  just  outside 
the  cottage  window  waiting  for  us  to  rise,  and  began  to 
converse  about  him.  Longfellow  grew  nervous  and  rose 
to  speak  with  Sumner  —  still  Holmes  did  not  perceive, 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    45 

and  went  on  until  Jamie  relieved  us  from  a  tendency 
to  convulsions  by  voting  that  we  should  join  the  Sen- 
ator. Then  Sumner  related  the  substance  of  an  amusing 
letter  of  Cicero's  he  had  just  been  reading  in  which 
Cicero  gives  an  account  to  his  friend  of  a  visit  he  had 
just  received  from  the  Emperor  Julius  Caesar.  He  had 
invited  Julius  to  pass  a  few  days  with  him,  but  he  came 
quite  unexpectedly  with  a  thousand  men  !  Cicero,  see- 
ing them  from  afar,  debated  with  another  friend  what 
he  should  do  with  them,  but  at  length  managed  to  en- 
camp them.  To  feed  them  was  a  less  easy  matter.  The 
emperor  took  everything  quite  easily,  however,  and 
was  very  pleasant,  "but,"  adds  Cicero,  "he  is  not  the 
man  to  whom  I  should  say  a  second  time,  'if  you  are 
passing  this  way,  give  me  a  call.'" 

Again,  in  1873,  Longfellow,  Holmes,  and  Sumner  are 
found  together  at  the  dinner-table  with  Mrs.  Fidds, 
this  time  in  Charles  Street.  When  she  made  use  of  her 
diary  at  this  point,  for  her  article  on  Dr.  Holmes  which 
appeared  first  in  the  "Century  Magazine"  (1895),  it 
was  with  many  omissions.  The  passage  is  now  given 
almost  entire.  It  should  be  said  that  the  Misses  Towne, 
mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  it,  were  friends  and  sum- 
mer neighbors  at  Manchester. 

Saturday  J  October  11,  1873.  —  Helen  and  Alice  Towne 
have  come  to  pass  Sunday  with  us.  Charles  Sumner, 
Longfellow,  Greene,  Dr.  Holmes  came  to  dine.  Mr. 
Sumner  seemed  less  strong  than  of  late  and  I  fancied  he 


46  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

suffered  somewhat  while  at  table  during  the  evening, 
but  he  told  me  he  was  working  at  his  desk  or  reading 
during  fourteen  consecutive  hours  not  infrequently  at 
present,  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  doing  when  uninter- 
rupted by  friendly  \'isits.  He  said  he  was  very  fond  of 
the  passive  exercise  of  reading;  the  active  exercise  of 
composition  was  of  course  agreeable  in  certain  moods, 
but  reading  was  a  never-ending  delight.  He  spoke  of 
Lord  Brougham,  and  Mrs.  Norton  and  her  two  beauti- 
ful sisters.  Both  he  and  Mr.  Longfellow  recalled  them 
in  their  youthful  loveliness,  but  Mr.  Sumner  said  when 
he  was  in  England  the  last  time  he  saw  the  Duchess  of 
Somerset,  who  was  a  most  ix>etic  looking  creature  in  her 
youth  and  (I  believe)  the  youngest  of  the  three  sisters, 
so  changed  he  should  never  have  guessed  who  it  might 
be.  She  was  grown  a  huge  red-faced  woman.  (Long- 
fellow laughed,  referring  to  her  second  marriage  and 
said,  "Yes,  she  had  turned  a  Somerset!")  Dr.  Holmes 
sparkled  and  coruscated  as  I  have  seldom  heard  him 
before.  We  are  more  than  ever  convinced  that  no  one 
since  Sydney  Smith  was  ever  so  brilliant,  so  witty, 
spontaneous,  naif,  and  unfailing  as  Dr.  Holmes.  He 
talked  much  about  his  class  in  College:  "There  never 
was  such  x-igor  in  any  class  before,  it  seems  to  me  — 
almost  ever}'  member  turns  out  sooner  or  later  distin- 
guished for  something.  We  have  had  every  grade  of 
moral  status  from  a  criminal  to  a  Chief  Justice,  and  we 
never  let  any  one  of  them  drop.  We  keep  hold  of  their 
hands  year  after  year  and  lift  up  the  weak  and  failing 
ones  till  they  are  at  last  redeemed.   .\h,  there  was  one 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    47 

exception  —  years  ago  we  voted  to  cast  a  man  out  who 
had  been  a  defaulter  or  who  had  committed  some  of- 
fense of  that  nature.  The  poor  fellow  sank  down,  and 
before  the  next  year,  when  we  repented  of  this  decision, 
he  had  gone  too  far  down  and  presently  died.  But  we 
have  kept  all  the  rest.  Every  fourth  man  in  our  class  is 
a  poet.  Sam.  Smith  belongs  to  our  class,  who  wrote  '  My 
Country,  't  is  of  Thee.'  Sam.  Smith  will  live  when  Long- 
fellow, Whittier,  and  all  the  rest  of  us  have  gone  into 
oblivion  —  and  yet  what  is  there  in  those  verses  to 
make  them  live  ?  Do  you  remember  the  line  'Like  that 
above'.''  I  asked  Sam.  what  'that'  referred  to  —  he 
said  'that  rapture'!! — (The  expression  of  the  rapid 
talker's  face  of  contempt  as  he  said  this  was  one  of  the 
most  amusing  possible.)  —  Even  the  odds  and  ends  of 
our  class  have  turned  out  something.  .  .  .  Longfellow, 
I  wish  I  could  make  you  talk  about  yourself."  —  "  But  I 
never  do,"  said  L.  quietly.  "  I  know  you  never  do,  but 
you  confessed  to  me  once."  —  "No,  I  don't  think  I  ever 
did,"  said  L.  laughing. 

Greene  was  for  the  most  part  utterly  speechless.  He 
attended  with  great  assiduity  to  his  dinner,  which  was  a 
good  one,  and  Longfellow  was  watchful  and  kind  enough 
to  send  him  little  choice  things  to  eat  which  he  thought 
he  would  enjoy. 

Holmes  was  abstemious  and  never  ceased  talking  — 
"Most  men  write  too  much.  I  would  rather  risk  my 
future  fame  upon  one  lyric  than  upon  ten  volumes.  But 
I  have  said  Boston  is  the  hub  of  the  universe.  I  will  rest 
upon  that." 


48  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

All  this  report  is  singularly  dry  compared  with  the  wit 
and  humor  which  radiated  about  the  table.  We  laughed 
till  the  tears  ran  down  our  cheeks.  Longfellow  was  in- 
tensely amused.  I  have  not  seen  him  laugh  so  much  for 
many  a  long  day.  We  ladies  sat  at  the  table  long  after 
coffee  and  cigars  in  order  to  hear  the  talk.  .  .  . 

Sumner  said  he  had  been  much  displeased  by  a  re- 
mark Professor  Henry  Hunt  made  to  him  a  few  days 
ago.  He  said  Mr.  Agassiz  was  an  itnpediment  in  the  path 
of  science.  What  did  such  men  as  Hunt  and  John  Fiske 
mean  by  underrating  a  man  who  has  given  such  books 
to  the  world  as  Agassiz  has  done,  not  to  speak  of  his 
untiring  efforts  in  the  other  avenues  of  influence!  "It 
means  just  this,"  said  Holmes:  ".Agassiz  will  not  listen 
to  the  Darwinian  theory  ;  his  whole  efl^ort  is  on  the  other 
side.  Now  Agassiz  is  no  longer  young,  and  I  was  reading 
the  other  day  in  a  book  on  the  Sandwich  Islands  of 
an  old  Fcjce  man  who  had  been  carried  away  among 
strangers,  but  who  prayed  he  might  be  carried  home, 
that  his  brains  might  be  beaten  out  in  peace  by  his  son 
acairding  to  the  custom  of  those  lands.  It  flashed  over 
mc  then  that  our  sons  beat  out  our  brains  in  the  same 
way.  They  do  not  walk  in  our  ruts  of  thoughts  or  begin 
exactly  where  we  leave  ofl^,  but  they  have  a  new  stand- 
point of  their  own.  \x.  present  the  Darwinian  theory 
can  be  nothing  but  an  hypothesis;  the  important  links 
of  proof  are  missing  and  cannot  be  supplied  ;  but  in  the 
myriad  ages  there  may  be  new  developments." 

I  thought  the  young  ladies  looked  a  little  tired  sit- 
ting, so  about  nine  o'clock  we  left  the  table  —  still  the 


LOUIS  AGASSIZ 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    49 

talk  went  on  for  about  four  hours  when  they  broke  up. 

With  two  letters  from  Dr.  Hohnes  this  mmbling  chron- 
icle of  his  friendship  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fields  must  end. 
The  first  of  the  communications  is  a  mere  fragment  of 
his  everyday  humor : 

Beverly- Farms-by-the-Depot 

July  \Wi,  1878 
Dear  Mr.  Fields  :  — 

The  Corner  sends  me  a  book  directed  to  me  here, 
but  on  opening  the  outside  wrapper  I  read  "James  T. 
Fields,  Esq.,  Jamaica  Plain,  Boston,  Mass."  The  book, 
which  is  sealed  up  (or  stuck  up,  like  many  authors), 
measures  7x5,  nearly,  and  is  presumably  idiotic,  like 
most  books  which  are  sent  us  without  being  ordered. 
Perhaps  you  have  received  a  similar  package  which 
on  opening  you  found  directed  to  O.  W.  Holmes,  Esq., 
Peak  of  TenerifFe,  Boston.  If  so,  when  the  weather 
grows  cool  again  and  we  can  make  up  our  minds  to  face 
the  title  page  of  the  dreaded  volume,  we  will  make  an 
exchange. 

Always  truly  yours, 

O.  W.  Holmes 

The  second  letter,  written  ten  years  after  Dr.  Holmes, 
in  moving  from  Charles  to  Beacon  Street,  had  made  the 
last  of  his  "justifiable  domicides,"  strikes  a  more  serious 
note,  revealing  that  quality  of  true  sympathy  so  closely 
joined  in  abundant  natures  with  true  humor.  Mr. 
Fields  had  died  in  April  of  1881,  and  Mrs.  Fields  had 


so  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

applied  herself  at  once  to  the  preparation  of  her  volume, 
"James  T.  Fields:  Biographical  Notes  and  Personal 
Sketches,"  drawing  freely  upon  the  diaries  from  which 
many  of  the  foregoing  pages,  then  passed  over,  are  now 
taken.  The  performance  of  this  loving  labor  must  have 
done  much  towards  the  first  filling  of  a  life  so  grievously 
emptied.  Already  the  intimate  and  beloved  com- 
panionship of  Miss  Jewett  had  come  into  it. 

294  Beacon  St.,  November  16,  1881 

My  dear  Mrs.  Fields:  — 

I  feel  sure  there  will  be  but  one  voice  with  regard  to 
your  beautiful  memorial  volume.  If  I  had  any  mis- 
givings that  you  might  find  the  delicate  task  too  diffi- 
cult —  that  you  might  be  discouraged  between  the 
wish  to  draw  a  life-like  picture  and  the  fear  of  saying 
more  than  the  public  had  a  right  to,  these  misgivings 
have  all  vanished,  and  I  am  sure  your  finished  task 
leaves  nothing  to  be  regretted.  .As  he  was  in  life, 
he  is  in  your  loving  but  not  overwrought  story.  I  do 
not  see  how  a  life  so  full  of  wholesome  activity  and 
genuine  human  feeling  could  have  been  better  pictured 
than  it  is  in  your  pages.  Long  before  I  had  finished 
reading  your  memoir  in  the  proofs  I  had  learned  to 
trust  you  entirely  as  to  the  whole  management  of  the 
work  on  which  you  had  entered.  .AH  I  feared  was 
that  your  feelings  might  be  overtasked,  and  that  the 
dread  of  coming  before  the  public  when  your  whole 
heart  was  in  the  pages  opened  to  its  calm  judgment 
might  be  more  than  you  could  bear. 


DR.  HOLMES,  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR    51 

And  now,  my  dear  Mrs.  Fields,  there  must  come  a 
period  of  depression,  almost  of  collapse,  after  the  labor 
and  the  solace  of  this  tender,  tearful,  yet  blessed  occu- 
pation. I  think  you  need  the  kind  thoughts  and  sooth- 
ing words  —  if  words  have  any  virtue  in  them  —  of 
those  who  love  you  more  than  while  each  day  had  its 
busy  hours  in  which  the  memory  of  so  much  that  was 
delightful  to  recall  kept  the  ever-returning  pangs  of 
grief  a  Uttle  while  in  abeyance.  It  must  be  so.  But 
before  long,  quietly,  almost  imperceptibly,  there  will,  I 
hope  and  trust,  return  to  you  the  quieting  sense  of  all 
that  you  have  done  and  all  that  you  have  been  for  that 
life  which  for  so  many  happy  years  you  were  privileged 
to  share.  How  few  women  have  so  perfectly  fulfilled,  not 
only  every  duty,  but  every  ideal  that  a  husband  could 
think  of  as  going  to  make  a  happy  home  !  This  must 
be  and  will  be  an  ever-growing  source  of  consolation. 

Forgive  me  for  saying  what  many  others  must  have 
said  to  you,  but  none  more  sincerely  than  myself. 

I  do  not  know  how  to  express  to  you  the  feeling 
with  which  Mrs.  Holmes  looks  upon  you  in  your  be- 
reavement. I  should  do  it  injustice  if  I  attempted  to 
give  it  expression,  for  she  lives  so  largely  in  her  sym- 
pathies and  her  endeavors  to  help  others  that  she  could 
not  but  sorrow  deeply  with  you  in  your  affliction  and 
wish  there  were  any  word  of  corusolation  she  could  add 
to  the  love  she  sends  you. 

Believe  me,  dear  Mrs.  Fields, 

Affectionately  yours, 

O.  W.  Holmes 


52  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

For  thirteen  years  longer,  till  his  death  in  1894  ^^  the 
age  of  eighty-five,  Dr.  Holmes  was  a  prolific  writer  of 
notes,  more  often  than  letters,  to  Mrs.  Fields.  The  sym- 
pathy of  tried  and  ripened  friendship  runs  through  them 
all.  In  the  Charles  Street  house  the  younger  friends 
might  see  from  time  to  time  this  oldest  friend  of  their 
hostess.  When  he  came  no  more,  it  was  well  for  those  of 
a  later  day  that  his  memory  was  so  securely  held  in  the 
retrospect  and  the  record  of  Mrs.  Fields. 


IV 

CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  VISITORS 

The  volumes  in  which  Mrs.  Fields  brought  to  light 
many  passages  from  her  journals  stand  as  red  and  black 
buoys  marking  the  channel  through  which  the  navigator 
of  these  pages  must  steer  his  course  if  he  is  to  avoid  the 
rocks  and  shoals  of  the  previously  published.  In  her 
books  it  was  but  natural  that  she  should  deal  most  freely 
with  those  august  figures  in  American  letters  who  so 
towered  above  their  contemporaries  as  to  attach  the 
longer  and  more  portentous  adjective  "Augustan"  to 
the  circle  formed  by  the  joining  of  their  hands.  If  it  has 
become  the  fashion  to  look  back  upon  the  American 
Augustans  and  the  English  Victorians  with  similarly 
mingled  feelings,  in  which  tolerance  stands  in  a  growing 
proportion  to  the  admiration  and  respect  which  form- 
erly ruled  supreme,  it  is  the  unaltered  fact  that  the  fig- 
ures of  the  American  group  dominated  both  the  local 
and  the  national  scene  of  letters  in  their  day,  and  that 
their  historic  significance  is  undiminished.  But  it  is 
rather  as  human  beings  than  as  literary  figures  that 
they  reveal  themselves  in  the  sympathetic  records  of 
Mrs.  Fields  —  human  beings  who  typified  and  embod- 
ied a  state  of  thought  and  society  so  remote  in  its  char- 
acteristic qualities  from  the  prevailing  conditions  of  this 
later  day  as  to  be  approaching  steadily  that  "equal  date 


54  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

with  Andes  and  with  Ararat"  of  which  one  of  them 
wrote  in  words  quite  unmistakably  his  own. 

Perhaps  no  single  member  of  the  group  is  represented 
in  Mrs.  Fields's  journals  so  often  as  Dr.  Holmes  by 
illuminating  pages  which  she  herself  left  unprinted.  For 
this  reason,  and  because  Concord  and  Cambridge  visi- 
tors to  Charles  Street  were  in  fact  so  much  a  "group," 
it  has  seemed  wise  to  assemble  in  this  place  passages 
that  relate  to  one  after  another  of  the  "Augustan" 
friends  in  turn.  Sometimes  they  appear  as  separate 
subjects  of  record,  sometimes  in  company  with  their 
fellows.  That  majestic  figure,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne, 
whose  death  in  1864  made  the  earliest  gap  in  the  circle 
of  figures  most  memorable,  shall  be  first  to  step  forth, 
like  one  of  his  own  personages  of  the  Province  House, 
from  the  shadows  in  which  imlccd  he  lived. 


The  long  chapter  on  Hawthorne  in  "Yesterdays  with 
Authors,"  and  that  small  volume  n.bout  him  which  Mrs, 
Fields  contributed  in  1899  to  the"  Beacon  Biographies," 
constitute  the  more  finished  portraits  of  the  man  as  his 
host  and  hostess  in  Charles  Street  saw  him.  His  letters 
to  Fields  are  quoted  at  length  in  "Yesterdays  with 
Authors,"  and  contribute  an  autobiographic  element  of 
much  importance  to  any  study  of  Hawthorne.  But 
there  are  illuminating  passages  that  were  left  unpub- 
lished. In  one  of  them,  for  example,  Hawthorne,  in  a 
letter  of  September  21,  i860,  after  lamenting  thestateof 
his  daughter's  health,  exclaimed  :    "  I  am  continually  re- 


HAWTHORNE  IX   1857 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  SS 

minded,  nowadays,  of  a  response  which  I  once  heard 
a  drunken  sailor  make  to  a  pious  gentleman  who  asked 

him  how  he  felt:    'Pretty  d d  miserable,  thank 

God  !'  It  very  well  expresses  my  thorough  discomfort 
and  forced  acquiescence."     In   another,  of  July   14, 

1 86 1,  after  the  calamity  that  befell  Longfellow  in  the 
tragic  death  of  his  wife  through  burning,  Hawthorne 
wrote  to  Fields  :  — 

"How  does  Longfellow  bear  this  terrible  misfor- 
tune ?  How  are  his  own  injuries  ?  Do  write  and  tell 
me  all  about  him.  I  cannot  at  all  reconcile  this  calamity 
to  my  sense  of  fitness.  One  would  think  that  there 
ought  to  have  been  no  deep  sorrow  in  the  life  of  a  man 
like  him;  and  now  comes  this  blackest  of  shadows, 
which  no  sunshine  hereafter  can  ever  penetrate!  I 
shall  be  afraid  ever  to  meet  him  again ;  he  cannot  again 
be  the  man  that  I  have  known." 

In  the  words,  "I  shall  be  afraid  ever  to  meet  him 
again,"  the  very  accent  of  Hawthorne  is  clearly  heard. 
Still  another  manuscript  letter,  preserved  in  the  Charles 
Street  cabinet,  should  now  be  printed  to  round  out  the 
story  of  Hawthorne's  reluctant  omission  from  his 
"Atlantic"  article  —  "Chiefly  about  War  Matters"  — 
that  personal  description  of  Abraham  Lincoln  which 
Fields  was  unwilling  to  publish  in  his  magazine  in 

1862,  but  afterwards  included  in  his  "Yesterdays  with 
Authors."  ^  In  that  place,  however,  he  used  but  a  few 
words  from  the  following  letter. 

1  See  Yesterdays  with  Authors,  p.  98,  and  The  Atlantic  Monthly  and  Its 
Makers,  p.  46. 


56  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Concord,  May  23,  '62 

Dear  Fields  :  — 

I  have  looked  over  the  article  under  the  influence  of 
a  cigar  and  through  the  medium  (but  don't  whisper  it) 
of  a  glass  of  arrack  and  water  ;  and  though  I  think  you 
are  wrong,  I  am  going  to  comply  with  your  request.  I 
am  the  most  good-natured  man,  and  the  most  amenable 
to  good  advice  (or  bad  advice  either,  for  that  matter) 
that  you  ever  knew  —  so  have  it  your  own  way.  The 
whole  description  of  the  interview  with  Uncle  Abe  and 
his  personal  appearance  must  be  omitted,  since  I  do 
not  find  it  possible  to  alter  them,  and  in  so  doing,  I 
really  think  you  omit  the  only  part  of  the  article  really 
worth  publishing.  Upon  my  honor,  it  seemed  to  me  to 
have  a  historical  value  —  but  let  it  go.  I  have  altered 
and  transferred  one  of  the  notes  so  as  to  indicate  to  the 
unfortunate  public  that  it  here  loses  something  very 
nice.    You  must  mark  the  omission  with  dashes,  so  — 

X    X    X    X    X    X    X. 

I  have  likewise  modified  the  other  passage  you  al- 
lude to;  and  I  cannot  now  conceive  of  any  objection 
to  it. 

What  a  terrible  thing  it  is  to  try  to  get  off  a  little  bit 
of  truth  into  this  miserable  humbug  of  a  world!  If  I 
had  sent  you  the  article  as  I  first  conceived  it,  I  should 
not  so  much  have  wondered. 

I  want  you  to  send  me  a  proof  sheet  of  the  article  in 
its  present  state  before  making  any  alterations;  for  if 
ever  I  collect  these  sketches  into  a  volume,  I  shall  insert 
it  in  all  its  original  beauty. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  57 

With  the  best  regards  to  Mrs.  Fields, 
Truly  yours, 

Nath^  Hawthorne 
P.  S.     I  shall  probably  come  to  Boston  next  week,  to 
the  Saturday  Club. 

If  these  unpublished  letters  add  something  to  the 
more  formal  portraits  of  Hawthorne  drawn  by  Fields 
and  his  wife,  still  other  lines  may  be  added  by  means  of 
the  unconscious,  fragmentary  sketches  on  which  the 
portraits  were  based.  In  Mrs.  Fields's  diaries  the  fol- 
lowing glimpses  of  Hawthorne  in  the  final  months  of 
his  life  are  found. 

December  4,  1863.  —  Hawthorne  and  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Alden  passed  the  night  with  us;  he  came  to  town  to 
attend  the  funeral  of  Mrs.  Franklin  Pierce.  He  seemed 
ill  and  more  nervous  than  usual.  He  brought  the  first 
part  of  a  story  which  he  says  he  shall  never  finish.^ 
J.  T.  F.  says  it  is  very  fine,  yet  sad.  Hav/thorne  says  in 
it,  "pleasure  is  only  pain  greatly  exaggerated,"  which 
is  queer  to  say  the  least,  if  not  untrue.  I  think  it  must 
be  diflferently  stated  from  this.  He  was  as  courteous 
and  as  grand  as  ever,  and  as  true.  He  does  not  lose 
that  all-saddening  smile,  either. 

Sunday,  December  6,  1863.  —  Mr.  Hawthorne  re- 
turned to  us.  He  had  found  General  Pierce  overwhelmed 
with  sadness  at  the  death  of  his  wife  and  greatly  needing 
his  companionship,  therefore  he  accompanied  him  the 

1  The  Dolliver  Romance. 


58  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

whole  distance  to  Concord,  N.  H.  He  said  he  could  not 
generally  look  at  such  things,  but  he  was  obliged  to  look 
at  the  body  of  Mrs.  Pierce.  It  was  like  a  carven  image 
laid  in  its  richly  embossed  enclosure  and  there  was  a 
remote  expression  about  it  as  if  it  had  nothing  to  do 
with  things  present.  Harriet  Prescott  was  there.  He  had 
some  talk  with  her  and  liked  her.  He  was  more  deeply 
impressed  than  ever  with  the  exquisite  courtesy  of  his 
friend.  Even  at  the  grave,  while  overwhelmed  with 
grief,  Pierce  drew  up  the  collar  of  Hawthorne's  coat  to 
keep  him  from  the  cold.* 

We  went  to  walk  in  the  morning  antl  left  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne to  read  in  the  library.  He  found  a  book  called 
"Dealings  with  the  Dead,"  which  he  liked  —  indeed  he 
said  he  likeil  no  house  to  stay  in  better  than  this.  He 
thought  the  old  edition  of  Boccaccio  which  belonged  to 
lx:igh  Hunt  a  poor  translation.  He  has  already  written 
the  first  chapter  of  a  new  romance,  but  he  thought  so 
little  of  the  work  himself  as  to  make  it  impossible  for 
him  to  continue  until  Mr.  Fields  had  read  it  and  ex- 
pressed his  sincere  admiration  for  the  work.  This  has 
given  him  better  heart  to  go  on  with  it.  He  talked  of  the 
magazine  with  Mr.  V.;  t(jld  him  he  thought  it  was  the 
most  ably  edited  magazine  in  the  world,  and  was  bound 
to  be  a  success,  with  this  exception :  he  said,  "I  fear  its 
politics  —  beware  1  What  will  you  do  when  in  a  year  or 
two  the  politics  of  the  country  change  ?"  "I  will  cjuietly 
wait  tor  that  time  to  come,"  saiti  J.  T.  1"\  ;  "then  I  can 
tell  you." 

'Fields  lircw  upon  this  paragraph  for  one  in  Yesterdays  with  Julhors,  p.  112. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  59 

As  the  sunset  deepened  Mr.  Hawthorne  talked  of  his 
early  life.  His  grandfather  bought  a  township  in  Maine 
and  at  the  early  age  of  eleven  years  he  accompanied  his 
mother  and  sister  down  there  to  live  upon  the  land. 
From  that  moment  the  happiest  period  of  his  life  began 
and  lasted  until  he  was  thirteen,  when  he  was  sent  to 
school  in  Salem.  While  in  Maine  he  lived  like  a  bird  of 
the  air,  so  perfect  was  the  freedom  he  enjoyed.  During 
the  moonlight  nights  of  winter  he  would  skate  until  mid- 
night alone  upon  the  icy  face  of  Sebago  Lake,  with  all 
its  ineffable  beauty  stretched  before  him  and  the  deep 
shadows  of  the  hills  on  either  hand.  When  he  was  weary 
he  could  take  refuge  sometimes  in  a  log  cabin  (there 
were  several  in  this  region),  where  half  a  tree  would  be 
burning  on  the  broad  hearth  and  he  could  sit  by  that 
and  see  the  stars  up  through  the  chimney.  All  the  long 
summer  days  he  roamed  at  will,  gun  in  hand,  through 
the  woods,  and  there  he  learned  a  nearness  to  Nature 
and  a  love  for  free  life  which  has  never  left  him  and  made 
all  other  existence  in  a  measure  insupportable.  His 
suffering  began  with  that  Salem  school  and  his  knowl- 
edge of  his  relatives  who  were  all  distasteful  to  him.  He 
said,  "How  sad  middle  life  looks  to  people  of  erratic 
temperaments.  Everything  is  beautiful  in  youth  —  all 
things  are  allowed  to  it."  We  gave  him  "Pet  Marjorie" 
to  read  in  the  evening  —  a  little  story  by  John 
Brown.  He  thought  it  so  beautiful  that  he  read  it  care- 
fully twice  until  every  word  was  grasped  by  his  powerful 
memory.  .  .  . 

Talking  of  England,  Hawthorne  said  she  was  not  a 


6o  mi:morii:s  uv  a  ii()sri:ss 

powerful  empire.  The  extent  over  which  her  dominions 
extended  led  her  to  fancy  herself  powerful.  She  is  much 
like  a  squash  vine  which  rins  over  a  whole  garden,  but 
once  cut  at  the  root  and  it  is  gone  at  once. 

We  talked  and  laughed  about  Boswell,  whom  he 
thinks  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  who  ever  lived, 
and  J.  T.  F.  recalled  that  story  of  Johnson  who,  upon 
being  told  of  a  man  who  had  committed  some  mis- 
demeanor and  was  upon  the  verge  of  committing  sui- 
cide in  consequence,  said,  "Why  does  not  the  man  go 
somewhere  where  he  is  not  known,  instead  of  to  the 
devil  where  he  is  known?" 

Hawthorne  was  in  the  same  class  at  college  with  Long- 
fellow, whom  he  says  he  could  not  appreciate  at  that 
time.  He  was  always  finely  dressed  antl  was  a  tremen- 
dous student.  Hawthorne  was  careless  in  dress  and  no 
student,  but  always  reading  desultorily  right  and  left. 
Now  they  are  deeply  appreciative  of  each  othcr.^ 

Hawthorne  says  he  wants  the  North  to  beat  now; 
't  is  the  only  way  to  save  the  country  from  destruction. 
He  has  been  strangely  inert  and  remote  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  the  war;  partly  from  his  deep  hatred  of  every- 
thing sad.  He  seemed  to  feel  as  if  he  could  not  live  and 
face  it. 

He  was  intensely  witty,  but  his  wit  is  of  so  ethereal  a 
texture  that  the  fine  essence  has  vanished  and  I  can  re- 
member nothing  now  of  his  witty  things  ! 

•  Only  a  month  after  making  this  entry,  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  in  her  journal : 
"A  note  came  from  I^ingfcilow  saying  he  hail  received  a  sad  note  from  Haw- 
thorne. 'I  wish  wc  couKi  have  a  little  dinner  for  him,'  he  says,  'of  two  sad 
authors  and  two  jolly  publishers  —  nobody  else.'" 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  6i 

It  would  be  a  pity  to  truncate  the  following  passage 
by  confining  the  record  of  Fields's  day  in  Concord  to  his 
glimpse  of  Hawthorne,  already  recorded,  with  emenda- 
tions, in  the  "  Biographical  Notes.** 

Saturday  J  January  9,  1864.  —  J.  T.  F.  passed  yester- 
day in  Concord.  He  went  first  to  see  Hawthorne,  who 
was  sitting  alone  gazing  into  the  fire,  his  grey  dressing- 

From  a  letter  oj  Hawthorne'' s  after  a  visit  to  Charles  Street 

gown,  which  became  him  like  a  Roman  toga,  wrapped 
around  his  figure.  He  said  he  had  done  nothing  for 
three  weeks.  Yet  we  feel  his  romance  must  be  maturing 
in  his  mind.  General  Barlow  and  Mrs.  Howe  had  sent 
word  they  were  coming  to  call,  so  Mrs.  Hav/thorne  had 
gone  out  to  walk  (been  thrown  out  on  picket-duty,  Mrs. 
Stowe  said)  and  had  left  word  at  home  that  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne was  ill  and  could  see  no  one.  After  his  visit 
there,  full  of  afi^ectionate  kindness,  J.  T.  F.  proceeded 
to  dinner  with  the  Emersons.  Here  too  the  reception 
was  most  hearty,  but  he  fancied  there  were  no  servants 


62  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

to  speak  of  at  either  house.  Mrs.  E.  looked  deadly  pale, 
but  her  wit  coruscated  marvellously ;  even  Mr.  Emer- 
son grew  silent  to  listen.  She  said  a  committee  of  three, 
of  which  she  was  one,  had  been  formed  to  pronounce 
upon  certain  essays  (unpublished)  of  Mr.  Emerson, 
which  they  thought  should  be  printed  now.  She  thought 
some  of  them  finer  than  any  of  his  published  essays.  He 
laughed  a  great  deal  at  the  fun  she  poked  at  the  earlier 
efforts. 

From  there  J.  T.  F.  proceeded  to  see  the  Thoreaus. 
The  mother  and  sister  live  well,  but  lonely  it  should 
seem,  there  without  Henry.  They  produced  32  volumes 
of  journal  and  a  few  letters.  The  idea  was  to  print  the 
letters.  We  hope  it  may  be  done.  Their  house  was  like  a 
conservatory,  it  was  so  filled  with  plants  in  beautiful 
condition.  Henry  liked  to  have  the  doors  thrown  open 
that  he  might  look  at  these  during  his  illness.  He 
was  an  excellent  son,  and  even  when  living  in  his  retire- 
ment at  Walden  Pond,  would  come  home  every  day.  He 
supported  himself  too  from  a  very  early  age. 

Here  follows  a  passage  also  used  by  Fields  in  "Yester- 
days with  Authors,"  but  in  a  rendering  so  moderated 
that  the  original  entry  in  the  journal  is  quite  another 
thing. 

Monday^  March  28.  —  Mr.  Hawthorne  came  down  to 
take  this  as  his  first  station  on  his  journey  for  health. 
He  shocked  us  by  his  invalid  appearance.  He  has 
become  quite  deaf,  too.    His  limbs  are  shrunken  but 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  Gt, 

his  great  eyes  still  burn  with  their  lambent  fire.  He 
said,  "Why  does  Nature  treat  us  so  like  children!  I 
think  we  could  bear  it  if  we  knew  our  fate.  At  least  I 
think  it  would  not  make  much  difference  to  me  now 
what  became  of  me."  He  talked  with  something  of  his 
old  wit  at  times;  said,  "Why  has  the  good  old  custom 
of  coming  together  to  get  drunk  gone  out  ?  Think  of  the 
delight  of  drinking  in  pleasant  company  and  then  lying 
down  to  sleep  a  deep  strong  sleep."  Poor  man  !  He 
sleeps  very  little.  We  heard  him  walking  in  his  room 
during  a  long  portion  of  the  night,  heavily  moving, 
moving  as  if  indeed  waiting,  watching  for  his  fate. 
At  breakfast  he  gave  us  a  most  singular  account  of  an 
interview  with  Mr.  Alcott.  He  said:  "Alcott  was  one 
of  the  most  excellent  of  men.  He  could  never  quarrel 
with  anyone."  But  the  other  day  he  came  to  make 
Mr.  H.  a  call,  to  ask  him  if  there  was  any  difficulty  or 
misunderstanding  between  the  two  families.  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne said  no,  that  would  be  impossible;  "but  I  pro- 
ceeded," he  continued,  "to  tell  him  it  was  not  possible 
to  live  upon  amicable  terms  with  Mrs.  Alcott.  .  .  . 
The  old  man  acknowledged  the  truth  of  all  that  I  said 
(indeed  who  should  know  it  better),  but  I  comforted 
him  by  saying  in  time  of  illness  or  necessity  I  did  not 
doubt  we  should  be  the  best  of  helpers  to  each  other.  I 
clothed  all  this  in  velvet  phrases,  that  it  might  not  seem 
too  hard  for  him  to  bear,  but  he  took  it  all  like  a  saint." 
April,  1864.  —  When  Mr.  Hawthorne  returned  after 
watching  at  the  death-bed  of  Mr.  Ticknor,  his  mind  was 
in  a  healthier  condition,  we  thought,  than  when  he 


64  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

left,  but  the  experience  had  been  a  terrible  one.  I  can 
never  forget  the  look  of  pallid  exhaustion  he  wore  the 
night  he  returned  to  us.  He  said  he  had  scarcely  eaten 
or  slept  since  he  left.  "  Mr.  Childs  watched  me  so  closely 
after  poor  Ticknor  died,  as  if  I  had  lost  my  protector 
and  friend,  and  so  I  had  !  But  he  stuck  by  as  if  he  were 
afraid  to  leave  me  alone.  He  stayed  past  the  dinner 
hour,  and  when  I  began  to  wonder  if  he  never  ate  him- 
self, he  departed  and  sent  another  man  to  watch  me  till 
he  should  return!"  Nevertheless  he  liked  Mr.  Childs 
and  spoke  repeatedly  of  his  unwearying  kindness.  "I 
never  saw  anything  like  it,"  he  said;  yet  when  he  was 
abstractedly  wondering  where  his  slippers  were,  I  over- 
heard him  say  to  himself,  "Oh  !  I  remember,  that  cursed 
Childs  watched  me  so  I  forgot  everything." 

He  spoke  of  the  coKlness  of  somebody  and  said, 
"Well,  I  think  he  would  have  felt  something  if  he  had 
been  there  !"  He  said  he  did  not  think  death  would  be 
so  terrible  if  it  were  not  for  the  undertakers.  It  was 
dreadful  to  think  of  being  handled  by  those  men. 

He  was  often  wholly  overcome  by  the  ludicrous  view 
of  something  presented  to  him  in  the  midst  of  his  grief. 
There  was  a  black  servant  sleeping  in  the  room  that 
last  night,  whose  name  was  Peter.  Once  he  snored 
loudly,  when  the  dying  man  raised  himself  with  an  ap- 
preciation of  fun  still  living  in  him  and  said,  "Well 
done,  Peter!" 

In  every  account  of  the  last  week  of  Hawthorne's 
life,  the  shock  he  received  through  the  illness  and  death 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  6s 

of  his  friend  and  traveling  companion,  Ticknor,  in 
Philadelphia,  is  an  item  of  sombre  moment.  The  two 
men  had  left  Boston  together  late  in  March  —  Haw- 
thorne, sick  and  broken,  writing  but  once,  in  a  tremulous 
hand,  to  his  wife  during  the  ill-starred  journey;  Ticknor, 
giving  himself  unstintingly  to  the  restoration  of  Haw- 
thorne's health,  and  stricken  unto  death  before  a  fort- 
night was  gone.  The  circumstances  are  suggested  in  the 
entry  that  has  just  been  quoted  from  Mrs.  Fields's 
journal.  They  stand  still  more  clearly  revealed  in  the 
last  letter  written  by  Hawthorne  to  Fields,  who  refers 
to  it  in  "Yesterdays  with  Authors,"  and  adds  that  the 
news  of  Ticknor's  death  reached  Boston  on  the  very 
day  after  this  letter  was  written,  all  too  evidently  with 
a  feeble  hold  upon  the  pen. 

Philadelphia,  Continental  Hotel 

Saturday  mornifjg 

Dear  Fields  :  — 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  our  friend  Ticknor  is  suffering 
under  a  severe  billious  attack  since  yesterday  morning. 
He  had  previously  seemed  uncomfortable,  but  not  to  an 
alarming  degree.  He  sent  for  a  physician  during  the 
night,  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  an  allopathist,  who,  of 
course,  belabored  with  pills  and  powders  of  various 
kinds,  and  then  proceeded  to  cup,  and  poultice,  and  blis- 
ter, according  to  the  ancient  rule  of  that  tribe  of  sav- 
ages. The  consequence  is  that  poor  Ticknor  is  already 
very  much  reduced,  while  the  disorder  flourishes  as  lux- 
uriantly as  if  that  were  the  doctor's  sole  object.  He  calls 


(yd  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

it  a  billions  colic  (or  bilious,  I  know  not  which)  and  says 
it  is  one  of  the  severest  cases  he  ever  knew.  1  think  him 
a  man  of  skill  and  intelligence,  in  his  way,  and  doubt 
not  that  he  will  do  everything  that  his  views  of  scientific 
medicine  will  permit. 

Since  I  began  writing  the  above,  Mr.  Bennett  of  Bos- 
ton tells  me  the  Doctor,  after  this  morning's  visit,  re- 
quested the  proprietor  of  the  Continental  to  telegraph 
to  Boston  the  state  of  the  case.  I  am  glad  of  it,  because 
it  relieves  me  of  the  responsibility  of  either  disclosing 
bad  intelligence  or  withholding  it.  I  will  only  add  that 
Ticknor,  under  the  influence  of  a  blister  and  some  pow- 
ders, seems  more  comfortable  than  at  any  time  since  his 
attack,  and  that  Mr.  Bennett  (who  is  an  apothecary,  and 
therefore  conversant  with  these  accursed  matters)  says 
that  he  is  in  a  gofxi  state.  But  I  can  see  that  it  will  be 
not  a  very  few  days  that  will  set  him  upon  his  legs  again. 
As  regards  nursing,  he  shall  have  the  best  that  can  be 
obtained ;  and  my  own  room  is  next  to  his,  so  that  I  can 
step  in  at  any  moment ;  but  that  will  be  of  almost  as 
much  service  as  if  a  hippopotamus  were  to  do  him  the 
same  kindness.  Nevertheless,  I  have  blistered,  and  pow- 
dered, and  pilled  him  and  made  my  observation  on 
medical  science  and  the  sad  and  comic  aspects  of  human 
misery. 

Excuse  this  illegible  scrawl,  for  I  am  writing  almost 
in  the  dark.  Remember  me  to  Mrs.  Fields.  As  regards 
myself,  I  almost  forgot  to  say  that  I  am  perfectly  well. 
If  you  could  find  time  to  write  Mrs.  Hawthorne  and 
tell  her  so,  it  would  be  doing  me  a  great  favor,  for  I 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  67 

doubt  whether  I  can  find  an  opportunity  just  now  to^do 
it  myself.  You  would  be  surprised  to  see  how  stalwart 
I  have  become  in  this  little  time. 

Your  friend, 

N.  H. 

Barely  more  than  a  month  later,  Hawthorne,  travel- 
ing with  another  friend,  Franklin  Pierce,  died  in  New 
Hampshire.  Through  the  years  that  followed,  the 
friendship  of  the  Fieldses  with  his  widow  and  children 
afforded  many  occasions  for  brief  affectionate  record  in 
the  chronicles  of  Charles  Street.^ 

The  two  entries  that  follow  touch,  respectively,  upon 
glimpses  of  Hawthorne's  immediate  family  at  Concord, 
in  the  summer  of  1865,  and  of  his  surviving  sister  in  the 
summer  of  1866. 

Sunday  J  July  9,  1865.  —  Passed  Friday  in  Concord. 
Called  at  the  Emersons,  but  were  disappointed  to  find 
them  all  in  town,  Jamie  particularly,  who  wished  to  tell 
him  that  his  new  essay  on  Character  is  not  suited  to  the 
magazine.  Ordinary  readers  would  not  understand  him 
and  would  consider  it  blasphemous.  He  thinks  it  would 
do  more  good  if  delivered  simply  to  his  own  disciples 
first,  in  a  volume  of  new  essays  uniform  with  the  others. 

Dined  with  Sophia  Hawthorne  and  the  children,  the 
first  real  visit  since  that  glorious  presence  has  departed. 

^  In  Rose  Hawthorne  Lathrop's  Memories  of  Hawthorne  the  relation 
between  the  two  households  is  indicated  in  a  sentence  containing  the  nick- 
names of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fields:  "My  father  also  tasted  the  piquant  flavors 
of  merriment  and  luxury  in  this  exquisite  domicile  of  Heart's-Ease  and 
Mrs.  Meadows." 


68  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

What  an  altered  household  !  She  feels  very  lonely  and  is 
like  a  reed.  I  fear  the  children  find  small  restraint  from 
her.  Poor  child  !  How  tired  she  is  !  Will  God  spare  her 
further  trial,  I  wonder,  and  take  her  to  his  rest  ^  .  .  . 
Went  to  call  on  Sophia  Thoreau.'  .  .  .  Wc  s;iw  a  letter 
from  Froude,  the  historian,  to  H.  T.,  as  warmly  appre- 
ciative as  it  was  possible  for  a  letter  to  be;  also  "long 
good  histories,"  as  his  sister  said,  from  his  admirer 
Cholmondely.  His  journal  is  in  thirty-two  volumes  and 
when  J.  T.  F.  spoke  of  wishing  for  an  editor  to  condense 
these,  she  said  there  was  no  hurry  and  she  thought  the 
man  would  come.  We  spoke  of  Sanborn.  She  said,  "  He 
knows  a  great  deal,  but  I  never  associate  him  with  my 
brother." 

She  is  a  woman  borne  duwn  with  ill  health.  She 
seemed  to  possess,  as  we  saw  her,  something  of  the  self- 
sustaining  power  of  her  brother,  the  same  repose  and 
confidence  in  her  fate,  as  being  always  good.  Dear  S.  1 1, 
says  she  has  this  when  she  thinks  of  her  brother,  but 
often  loses  it  when  the  surface  of  her  life  becomes  irri- 
tated and  she  is  disabled  for  work.  Her  aged  mother, 
learning  we  were  there,  got  up  and  dressed  herself  and 
came  down,  to  her  daughter's  great  surprise.  She  has 
an  immense  care  in  that  old  lady  evidently. 

Ju/y  24,  1866.  —  We  left  just  before  eleven  for  Ames- 
bury,  to  see  Mr.  Whittier,  driving  over  to  Beverly  in 
an  open  wagon.  It  was  one  of  the  perfect  days.  As 
Keats  said  once,  the  sky  sat  "upon  our  senses  like  a 
sapphire  crown."  We  turned  away  after  a  time  from  the 

'  Thorca.i's  y(jjni;cr  sister. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  69 

high  road  into  a  wood  path,  picking  our  way  somewhat 
slowly  to  avoid  the  overhanging  bushes  and  the  rainy 
pools  left  in  the  ruts.  We  soon  found  ourselves  near  a 
place  called  Mt.  Serat  where  we  knew  Miss  Hawthorne 
lived,  the  only  surviving  sister  of  Nathaniel,  and  Mr. 
Fields  determined  at  once  to  call  upon  her.  To  my  sur- 
prise, in  spite  of  the  fine  weather  and  her  woodland  life 
habitually,  she  was  at  home,  and  came  down  immedi- 
ately as  if  she  were  sincerely  glad  to  see  us.  She  is  a 
small  woman,  with  small  fine  features,  round  full  face, 
fresh-looking  in  spite  of  years,  brilliant  eyes,  nervous 
brow,  which  twists  as  she  speaks,  and  very  nervous 
fingers.  In  one  respect  she  differed  from  her  brother  — 
she  was  exquisitely  neat  (nor  do  I  mean  to  convey  the 
idea  by  this  that  he  was  unneat,  but  he  always  gave  you 
a  sense  of  disregarded  trifles  about  his  person  and  we  fre- 
quently recall  his  reply  to  me  when  I  offered  to  brush  his 
coat  one  morning,  "No,  no,  I  never  brush  my  coat,  it 
wears  it  out  1"),  and  gave  you  a  sense  of  being  particu- 
lar in  little  things.  I  seemed  to  see  in  her  another  dif- 
ference —  a  deterioration  because  of  too  great  solitude 
— pov/ers  rusted — a  decaying  beauty — while  with  Haw- 
thorne soUtude  fed  his  genius,  solitude  and  the  pressure 
of  necessity.  Utter  solitude  lames  the  native  power  of  a 
woman  even  more  than  that  of  a  man,  for  her  natural 
growth  is  through  her  sympathies.  She  is  a  woman  of  no 
common  mould,  however.  Lucy  Larcom  calls  her  a 
hamadryad,  and  says  she  belongs  in  the  woods  and 
should  be  seen  there.  I  wish  to  see  her  again  upon  her 
own  ground.    She  asked  us  almost  immediately  if  we 


70  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

would  not  come  with  her  to  the  woods,  but  our  time 
was  too  short.  From  thence  we  held  our  way,  and  soon 
came  by  train  to  Newburyport  and  Amesbury.  Whittier 
was  at  home,  ready  with  an  enthusiastic  welcome. 

To  these  memorials  of  Hawthorne  must  be  added 
yet  another,  copied  from  a  pencilled  sheet  preserved  by 
Mrs.  Fields  in  an  envelope  endorsed  in  her  handwriting, 
"  The  original  of  a  precious  and  extraordinary  letter 
written  by  Mrs.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  while  her  husband 
lay  dead."  Printed  now,  I  believe  for  the  first  time, 
nearly  sixty  years  after  it  was  written,  it  rings  with  a  de- 
votion and  exaltation  which  time  is  pt)werless  to  touch: 

I  wish  to  speak  to  you,  Annie. 

A  person  of  a  more  uniform  majesty  never  wore 
mortal  form." 

In  the  most  retired  privacy  it  was  the  same  as  in 
the  presence  of  men. 

The  sacred  veil  of  his  eycliels  he  scarcely  lifted  to 
himself — such  an  unviolatcd  sanctuary  as  was  his 
nature,  I,  his  inmost  wife,  never  conceived  nor  knew. 

So  absolute  a  modesty  was  not  before  joined  to  so 
lofty  a  self-respect. 

But  what  must  have  been  that  self-respect  that  he 
never  in  the  smallest  particular  dishonored  ! 

A  conscience  more  void  of  offense  never  bore  witness 
to  GOD  within. 

It  was  the  innocence  of  a  baby  and  the  grand  com- 
prehension of  a  sage. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  71 

To  me  —  himself —  even  to  me  who  was  himself  in 
unity  —  he  was  to  the  last  the  holy  of  holies  behind 
the  cherubim. 

So  unerring  a  judgment  that  a  word  from  him  would 
settle  with  me  a  chaos  of  doubts  and  questions  that 
seemed  perplexing  to  ordinary  apprehension. 

So  equal  a  justice  that  I  often  wondered  if  he  were 
human  in  this  —  for  this  seemed  to  partake  of  omnis- 
cience both  of  love  and  insight. 

An  impartiality  of  regard  that  solved  all  men  and 
subjects  in  one  alembick. 

Truth  and  right  alone  he  deigned  to  regard.  Far 
below  him  was  every  other  consideration. 

A  tenderness  so  infinite  —  so  embracing  —  that 
GOD'S  alone  could  surpass  it.  It  folded  the  loathsome 
leper  in  as  soft  a  caress  as  the  child  of  his  home  affec- 
tions —  was  not  that  divine  ! 

Was  it  not  Christianity  in  one  action  1  What  a  be- 
quest to  his  children  —  what  a  new  revelation  of  Christ 
to  the  world  was  that !  And  for  him  —  whom  the  sight 
and  touch  of  unseemliness  and  uncleanness  caused  to 
shudder  as  an  Eolian  string  shudders  in  the  tempest. 

Annie  1  to  the  last  action  in  this  house  he  was  as 
lofty,  as  majestic,  as  imperial  and  as  gentle  —  as  in 
the  strength  of  his  prime,  as  on  the  day  he  rose  upon 
my  eye  and  soul  a  King  among  men  by  divine  right ! 

When  he  awoke  that  early  dawn  and  found  himself 
unawares  standing  among  the  "Shining  Ones"  do  you 
think  they  did  not  suppose  he  had  been  always  with 
them  —  one  of  themselves  ?     Oh,  blessed  be  GOD  for 


72  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

so  soft  a  translation  —  as  an  infant  wakes  on  its 
mother's  breast  so  he  woke  on  the  bosom  of  GOD  and 
can  never  be  weary  any  more,  nor  see  nor  touch  an 
unclean  thing.  A  demand  for  beauty  and  perfection 
that  was  inexorable.  Yet  though  a  flaw  or  a  crack 
gave  him  so  fine  agony,  no  one,  no  one  was  ever  so 
tolerant  as  he ! 


I  lawrhornc's  allusion  to  Alcott  brings  the  figure  of  that 
Concord  personage  on  the  scene.  The  picture  of  him  in 
Charles  Street  is  so  sharpened  in  outline  by  certain 
remarks  upon  him  by  the  elder  Henry  James,  a  some- 
what more  frequent  visitor,  that  the  passages  relating 
to  the  two  men  are  here  joined  together.  The  first 
recorded  glimpses  of  James  occurred  in  the  course  of  a 
visit  to  Newport. 

September  23,  1863.  —  Received  a  visit  at  Newport 
from  Henry  James.  His  son  was  badly  wounded  in  two 
places  at  Gettysburg.  He  spoke  of  the  reviews  of  his 
work  among  other  topics.  "  Who  wrote  the  review  in  the 
Examiner?"  asked  Mr.  F.  "Oh!  that  was  merely 
Freeman  Clarke,"  he  replied  ;  "he  is  a  smuggler  in  theol- 
ogy antl  feels  towards  me  much  as  a  contraband  towards 
an  exciseman  ?"  Speakingof  fashion,  he  said,  "there  was 
good  in  it,"  although  it  appears  to  be  a  drawback  to  the 
residents  here  while  it  lasts.  He  anticipates  a  change  in 
European  affairs;  the  age  of  ignorance  is  to  pass  away 
and  strong  democratic   tendencies   will   soon    pervade 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  73 

Europe.  The  march  of  civilization  will  work  its  revenge 
against  aristocratic  England,  he  believes. 

Mr.  James  considers  that  people  make  a  mistake  to 
expect  reason  from  Carlyle.  "He  is  an  artist,  a  wilful 
artist,  and  no  reasoner.   He  has  only  genius." 

October  16,  1863.  — Mr.  Alcott  breakfasted  with  us. 
He  said  all  vivid  new  life  was  well  described  by  his 
daughter  Louisa.  She  was  happier  now  that  she  had 
made  a  success.  "She  was  formerly  not  content  to  wait, 
but  so  soon  as  she  became  content,  then  good  fortune 
came,  as  she  always  does."  I  told  him  we  enjoyed 
deeply  reading  his  MSS.  of  "The  Rhapsodist"  (Emer- 
son) last  night.  He  said  he  thought  it  was  finally 
brought  into  presentable  shape!  "When  in  a  more  im- 
perfect condition,"  he  continued,  "I  read  it  to  Mr. 
Emerson.  The  modest  man  could  only  keep  silent  at 
such  a  time,  but  he  conveyed  to  me  the  idea  that  he 
should  prefer  the  paper  should  not  be  printed  in  the 
'Commonwealth.'  Later  I  again  read  it,  when  he  said, 
'If  I  were  dead.'  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  in  its 
present  shape  he  would  not  object  to  its  presentation."  ^ 
He  talked  of  his  own  valuable  library  and  asked  what 
he  should  do  with  it  by  and  by.  J.  T.  F.  suggested  it 
should  go  to  the  Union  Club,  which  pleased  him  much. 
"That  is  the  place,"  said  he.  "If  it  were  known  this 
was  my  intention,  might  I  not  also  be  entitled  to  con- 
sideration at  the  Club.?" 

I  In  1865  Alcott  printed  privately  and  anonymously  the  essay,  Emerson, 
which  appeared  later  in  his  acknowledged  volume,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 
an  Estimate  of  his  Character  and  Genius  (Boston,  1882).  This  was  evi- 
dently The  Rhapsodist. 


74  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Among  his  books  is  a  copy  of  Milton's  "World  of 
Words,"  owned  by  Sir  Ferdinand  Gorges,  who  early 
colonized  the  state  of  Maine. 

He  talked  of  Thoreau.  "There  will  be  seven  or  eight 
volumes  of  his  works.  Next  should  come  the  letters, 
with  the  commendatory  poems  prefixed.  Come  up  to 
Concord  and  we  will  talk  it  over.  If  you  go  to  see  Miss 
Thoreau,  arrange  to  talk  with  her  in  the  absence  of  the 
mother,  who  would  interrupt  and  speak  again  of  the 
whole  matter.  Make  Helen  ^  feel  that  Henry  will  receive 
as  much  for  his  books  as  if  he  had  made  his  own  bar- 
gain, for  he  was  good  at  a  bargain  and  they  are  a  little 
hard  —  that  is,  they  do  not  understand  all  the  bearings 
(jf  many  subjects." 

The  good  old  man  has  come  to  Boston,  being  asked 
to  perform  funeral  ceremonies  over  the  bodies  of  two 
children.  He  asked  for  my  Vaughan.  ".A  beautiful 
poem  which  is  not  known  is  much  at  such  a  time,"  he 
observed  inquiringly.    To  which  I  heartily  responded. 

Mr.  Emerson  came  in  to  see  Mr.  Fields  today.  "I 
shall  reconsider  my  reluctance  to  have  Mr.  Alcott's 
article  published  provided  he  will  obtain  consideration 
by  it,"  was  his  generous  speech.  He  said  he  had  begun 
to  prepare  a  new  volume  of  poems,  "but  I  must  go 
down  the  harbor  before  I  can  finish  a  little  poem  about 
the  islands.  I  took  steamboat  yesterday  and  went  down, 
but  a  mist  came  up  and  my  visit  was  to  no  purpose." 

February  19,  1864.  —  This  morning  early  called  upon 
Mrs.   Mott  of  Pennsylvania.     Found   Mr.  James  with 

'   lliurcau's  oilier  sister. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  75 

her.  He  observed  that  circumstances  had  placed  him 
above  want,  and  inheritance  had  given  him  a  position 
in  the  world  which  precluded  his  having  any  knowledge 
of  the  temptations  which  beset  many  men.  His  virtues 
were  the  result  of  his  position  rather  than  of  character 
—  an  affair  of  temperament.  He  said  society  was  to 
blame  for  much  of  the  crime  in  it,  and  as  for  that  poor 
young  man  who  committed  the  murder  at  Maiden,  it 
was  a  mere  fact  of  temperament  or  inheritance.  He 
soon  broke  off  his  talk,  saying  it  was  "pretty  well  to  be 
caught  in  the  middle  of  such  weighty  topics  in  the  pres- 
ence of  two  ladies  at  10  o'clock  in  the  morning."  Then 
we  talked  of*  houses.  He  wishes  a  furnished  house  for  a 
year  in  Boston  until  his  departure. 

July  28.  —  Still  hot,  with  a  russet  sun.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Henry  James  called  in  the  evening.  He  talked  of  "Ster- 
ling." "He  was  not  stereotyped,  but  living,  his  eye 
burned ;  he  was  very  vivacious,  although  he  saw  Death 
approaching.  He  was  one  of  the  choicest  of  friends." 
Afterward  he  talked  of  Alcott's  visit  to  Carlyle.  Car- 
lyle  told  Mr.  James  he  found  him  a  terrible  old  bore. 
It  was  almost  impossible  to  be  rid  of  him,  and  impossible 
also  to  keep  him,  for  he  would  not  eat  what  was  set 
before  him.  Carlyle  had  potatoes  for  breakfast  and 
sent  for  strawberries  for  Mr.  Alcott,  who,  when  they 
arrived,  took  them  with  the  potatoes  upon  the  same 
plate,  where  the  two  juices  ran  together  and  fraternized. 
This  shocked  Carlyle,  who  would  eat  nothing  himself, 
but  stormed  up  and  down  the  room  instead.  "Mrs. 
Carlyle  is  a  naughty  woman,"  said  Mr.  J.,  "she  wishes 


76  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

to  make  a  sensation  and  docs  not  mind  sometimes  fol- 
lowing and  imitating  her  husband's  way."  Mr.  J.  saiil 
Aicott  once  made  him  a  visit  in  New  York  and  when 
he  found  he  could  not  go  to  Brooklyn  to  attend  Mr. 
A.'s  "conversation,"  the  latter  said,  "Very  well;  he 
would  talk  over  the  heads  with  him  then  before  it  was 
time  to  go."  They  got  into  a  great  battle  about  the 
premises,  during  which  Mr,  Aicott  talked  of  the  Divine 
paternity  as  relating  to  himself,  when  Mr.  James  broke 
in  with,  "My  dear  sir,  you  have  not  fouml  your  mater- 
nity yet.  You  are  an  egg  half  hatched.  The  shells  are 
yet  sticking  about  your  head."  To  this  Mr.  A.  replied, 
"Mr.  James,  you  are  damaged  goods  ami  will  come  up 
damaged  goods  in  eternity.'* 

We  laughed  much  before  they  left  at  a  story  about  a 
man  who  called  to  ask  money  of  John  Jacob  Astor. 
The  gentleman  was  ushered  into  a  twilight  library, 
where  he  fancied  himself  alone  until  he  heard  a  grunt 
from  a  deep  chair,  the  high  back  of  which  was  turned 
towards  him  ;  then  the  gentleman  advanced,  found  Mr. 
Astor  there  and  saluted  him.  He  opened  the  business 
of  the  subscription  to  him,  and  was  about  to  unfold 
the  paper  when  Mr.  Astor  suddenly  crietl  out,  "Oo  — 
oo — oo — ooo(K>oo!"  "What  is  the  matter,  my  dear 
sir,"  said  he,  "are  you  ill  ?  [growing  alarmed]  Where  is 
the  bell  ?  I^t  me  ring  the  bell."  Then  running  to  the 
door,  he  shouted,  "  Madame,  madame."  Then  to  Mr. 
Astor,  "Pray, sir,  what  is  the  matter  ?"  "Oo — oo — oo." 
"Have  you  a  pain  in  your  side!!"  In  a  moment  the 
household  came  running  thither,  and  as  the  housekeeper 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  77 

bent  over  him,  he  cried,  "Oo  —  00  —  these  horrid 
wretches  sending  to  me  for  money!!"  As  may  be  be- 
lieved, our  friend  of  the  subscription  paper  beat  a  hasty 
retreat  and  here  ended  also  our  evening. 

A  few  days  later  there  was  an  evening  with  Sumner 
and  others,  who  talked  of  affairs  in  Washington.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  James  were  of  the  company.  "These  men," 
wrote  Mrs.  Fields,  "despond  with  regard  to  the  civil 
government.  They  have  more  faith  that  our  military 
affairs  are  doing  well.  Chiefly  they  look  to  Sherman  as 
the  great  man.  Mr.  James  was  silent;  he  believes  in 
Lincoln."  And  there  is  the  final  note:  "We  must  not 
forget  Mr.  James's  youth,  who  was  'aninted  with  isle 
of  Patmos.'" 

July  10,  1866.  —  Forceythe  Wlllson  came  and  talked 
purely,  lovingly,  and  like  the  pure  character  he  aspires 
to  be.  He  said  Mr.  Alcott  talked  with  him  of  tempera- 
ments lately,  with  much  wisdom.  He  said  the  blonde 
was  nearest  to  perfection,  that  was  the  heavenly  type. 
"You  are  not  a  blonde,"  said  the  seer  calmly,  and,  said 
Willson  to  me,  "I  was  much  amused  and  pleased  too; 
for  when  I  regarded  the  old  man  more  closely  I  dis- 
covered he  himself  was  a  blonde." 

October  6,  1867.  —  Mr.  Henry  James  and  his  daughter 

came  to  call.  We  chanced  to  ask  him  about  Dr.  G of 

New  York,  a  physician  of  wide  reputation  in  the  diag- 
nosis of  disease.  He  is  an  old  man  now,  but  with  so 
large  a  practice  that  he  will  see  no  new  patients.   Mr. 


78  mp:mories  of  a  hostess 

James  says,  however,  that  he  is  a  humbug,  that  is,  as  I 
understood.  He  is  a  man  of  discernment  which  he  turns 
to  the  best  account,  but  not  a  man  of  deep  insight  or 
unwonted  development.    Suddenly  J.  remembered  that 

there  was  once  a  Dr. of  New  York  who  was  also 

famous.  The  moment  his  name  was  mentioned  Mr. 
James  became  quite  a  new  man.  His  enthusiasm  flamed. 

Dr. died  at  the  early  age  of  ^'^8,  and,  according  to 

the  saying  of  the  world,  insane.  "Yet  he  was  no  more 
insane  than  I  am  at  this  moment  as  far  as  the  action  of 
his  mind  was  concerned,  which  was  always  perfectly 
clear.  Several  years  before  his  death  he  was  pursued  by 
spirits  which  often  kept  him  awake  all  night.  His  wife 
was  a  heavenly  woman  and  a  Swedenborgian.  The 
spirits  did  not  come  to  her,  but  she  was  persuaded  that 
they  did  come  to  him.  They  so  disturbed  his  life  that 
he  used  to  say  he  was  ready  to  die,  in  order  to  pursue 
his  tormentors  and  ferret  out  the  occasion  of  his  trouble. 
At  one  time  they  told  him  that  in  every  age  a  man  had 
been  selected  to  do  the  bidding  of  the  I^rd  God,  to  be 
the  Lord  Christ  of  the  time,  and  he  must  fit  himself 
to  be  that  man.  They  prescribed  for  him  therefore  cer- 
tain fasts  and  austerities  which  he  religiously  fulfilled, 
only  asking  in  return  an  interview  in  which  some  sign 
should  be  given  him.  They  promised  faithfully,  but 
when  the  time  arrived  it  was  postponed  ;  and  this  oc- 
curred repeatedly,  until  he  felt  sure  of  the  deceit  of  the 
parties  concerned." 

Through  the  medium  of  these  spirits  Dr.  be- 
came at  length  estranged  from  his  wife.  He  went  West 


CONCORD  AND  Cx^MBRIDGE  79 

to  obtain  a  divorce,  and  while  on  this  strange  errand 
occurred  a  breach  between  himself  and  Mr.  James.  The 
latter  wrote  him  a  letter  urging  him  away  from  the  dead, 
which  the  doctor  took  as  interference.  The  poor  man 
returned  to  New  York  and  at  length  shot  himself.  His 
wife  never  harbored  the  least  animosity  against  him  for 
his  undeserved  treatment.  (Mr.  J.  looked  like  an  invalid, 
but  was  full  of  spirit  and  kindness.  He  not  infrequently 
speaks  severely  of  men  and  things.  Analysis  is  his 
second  nature.) 

March  5,  1869.  —  Jamie  had  an  unusually  turbulent 
and  exciting  day,  and  was  thoroughly  weary  when  night 
came.  Henry  James  came  first,  and  had  gone  so  far  as 
to  abuse  Emerson  pretty  well  when  the  latter  came  in. 
"How  do  you  do,  Emer-son,"  he  said,  with  his  peculiar 
intonation  and  voice,  as  if  he  had  expected  him  on  the 
heels  of  what  had  gone  before.  Mr.  James  calls  his  new 
book,  "The  Secret  of  Swedenborg."  Jamie  thinks  his 
article  on  Carlyle  too  abusive,  especially  as  he  stayed  in 
his  house,  or  was  there  long  and  familiarly.  But  his 
love  of  country  was  bitterly  stung  by  Carlyle  in  "Shoot- 
ing Niagara  and  After." 

Saturday^  March  13,  1869.  —  Mr.  Emerson  read  in 
the  afternoon.  The  subject  was  Wordsworth  in  chief, 
but  the  time  was  far  too  short  to  do  justice  to  the  notes 
he  had  made.  In  the  evening  we  went  to  Cambridge  to 
hear  Mr.  James  read  his  paper  on  "Woman."  We  took 
tea  first  with  the  family  and  afterward  listened  to  the 
lecture.  He  took  the  highest,  the  most  natural,  and  the 
most  religious  point  of  view  from  which  I  have  heard 


8o  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

the  subject  discussed.  He  dealt  metaphysically  with  it, 
after  his  own  fashion,  showing  the  subtle  inherent 
counterparts  of  man  to  woman,  showing  to  what  ex- 
tremes either  would  be  led  without  the  other.  He  spoke 
with  unmingled  disgust  of  the  idea  of  woman,  except  for 
union  in  behalf  of  some  charity  for  the  time,  forsaking 
the  sanctity  and  privacy  of  her  home  to  battle  and  unsex 
herself  in  the  hot  and  dusty  arena  of  the  world. 

(The  members  of  the  Woman's  Club  asked  him  to 
write  this  lecture  for  them.  He  did  not  wish  to  spare 
the  time,  but  promised  to  do  so  if  they  would  invite 
him  afterward  to  deliver  it  in  public.  They  disliked 
the  lecture  so  much  that,  although  they  ^^/V/ send  him  a 
public  invitation,  there  were  but  twenty  people  present.) 

Nothing  could  be  holier  or  more  inspiring  than  his 
ideal  of  womanhood.  She  is  the  embodied  social  idea, 
the  genius  of  home,  the  light  of  life  —  "ever  desiring 
novelty  her  life  without  man  would  be  a  long  chase 
from  one  Held  to  another,  accompanied  by  sojt  gospel 
truth" 

He  didn't  fail  to  whip  the  "pusillanimous"  clergy, 
and  as  the  room  was  overstocked  with  them,  it  was  odd 
to  watch  the  eflfect.  Mr.  James  is  perfectly  brave, 
almost  inapprehensive,  of  the  storm  of  opinion  he 
raises,  and  he  is  quite  right.  Nothing  could  be  more 
clearly  his  own  and  inherent,  than  his  views  in  this 
lecture,  nothing  which  the  times  need  more.  He  helps 
to  lay  that  dreadful  phantom  of  yourself  which  appears 
now  and  then  conjured  up  by  the  right  people,  har- 
anguing the  crowd  and  endeavoring  to  be  something  for 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  8i 

which  you  were  clearly  never  intended  by  Heaven.  I 
think  I  shall  never  forget  a  pretty  little  niece  of  Mrs. 
Dale  Owen,  who  was  with  her  at  the  first  Club  meet- 
ing in  New  York.  Her  face  was  full  of  softness  and 
Madonna-like  beauty,  but  she  was  learning  to  con- 
tract her  brow  over  ideas  and  become  "strong"  in 
her  manner  of  expressing  them.  It  was  a  kind  of  night- 
mare. 

Summer,  1871.  —  Mr.  Alcott,  Mr.  Howison,  Mr. 
Harris,  the  latter  two  lovers  of  philosophy,  have  been 
here  this  week.  Channing  is  still  writing  poems  in 
Concord,  says  Alcott.  The  latter  smiles  blandly  at  his 
own  former  absurdities,  but  he  does  not  eat  meat,  and 
continues  his  ancient  manner  of  living  among  books. 
The  old  gentleman  gave  me  this  wild  rose  as  he  went 
away.  He  quoted  Vaughan,  talked  of  a  book  of  selec- 
tions he  would  wish  to  see  made,  "a  honey-pot  into 
which  one  might  dip  at  leisure,"  also  an  almanac  suit- 
able for  a  lady,  of  the  choicest  things  among  the  an- 
cient writers.  He  was  full  of  good  sayings  and  most 
witty  and  attractive.  He  is  somewhat  deaf,  but  he 
bears  this  infirmity  as  he  has  borne  all  the  ills  of  life 
with  a  mild  sweet  heroism  most  marked  and  worthy  of 
love  and  to  be  copied. 

Sunday,  April  20,  1873.  —  Last  night  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Henry  James,  Alice,  and  Mr.  DeNormandie  dined  here. 
Mr.  James  looked  very  venerable,  but  was  at  heart 
very  young  and  amused  us  much.  He  gave  a  description 
of  Mr.  George  Bradford  being  run  over  by  the  horse- 
car,  because  of  his  own  inadvertence  in  part,  and  of  the 


82  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

good-natured  crowd  who  insisted  upon  his  having  resti- 
tution for  what  he  considered,  in  part,  at  least,  his  own 
fault.  "Ain't  you  dead?"  said  one.  "267  Highland 
Ave.  is  the  number,  don't  forget,"  said  another;  "you 
can  prosecute."  "Where's  my  hat?"  he  asked  meekly. 
"  Better  ask  if  ye  're  not  dead,  and  not  be  looking  for 
your  hat,"  said  another. 

He  also  told  us  of  a  visit  of  Elizabeth  Pcabody  to  the 
Alcotts.  He  said  :  "  In  Mr.  A.  the  moral  sense  was  wholly 
dead,  and  the  aesthetic  sense  had  never  yet  been  born  !" 

It  may  well  have  been  after  a  visit  to  the  Ficldses  at 
the  seashore  town  of  Manchester  that  Henry  James 
wrote  this  undated  characteristic  note  which  embodies 
the  feeling  of  many  another  guest:  — 

Mv  DEAR  FlKLDS  : 

Pride  ever  goes  before  a  fall.  I  scorned  my  wife's  solic- 
itude about  her  umbrella  as  unworthy  of  an  immortal 
mind,  and  now  I  am  reduced  to  pleading  with  you  to 
preserve  my  lost  implement  in  that  line,  and  when  you 
next  come  to  town  to  bring  it  with  you  and  leave  it  for 
me  at  Williams'  book  store,  corner  of  School  Street, 
where  I  will  reclaim  it. 

Alas  !  The  difference  between  now  and  then  !  Such 
an  atmosphere  as  we  are  having  this  morning  !  And  yet 
we  did  not  need  the  contrast  to  impress  us  with  a  lively 
seruse  of  the  lovely  house,  the  lovely  scenes,  and  the 
lovely  people  we  had  left.  We  came  home  fragrant 
with  the  sweetest  memories,  and  the  way  we  have  been 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  83 

making  the  house  resound  with  the  fame  of  our  enjoy- 
ment would  amuse  you.  Alice  and  her  aunt  came  home 
just  after  us,  and  we  have  done  nothing  but  talk  since 
we  arrived.  Good  bye ;  give  my  love  to  that  angelic 
woman,  whom  I  shall  remember  in  my  last  visions, 
and  believe  me,  faithfully. 

Yours  also, 

H.J. 

Henry  James's  letters  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fields,  of  which 
a  number  are  preserved  by  the  present  generation  of 
the  James  family,  abound  in  characteristic  felicities.  In 
one  of  them  —  they  are  nearly  all  undated  —  he  regrets 
his  inability  to  read  a  lecture  of  his  own  at  Mrs.  Fields's 
invitation,  on  the  ground  that  his  unpublished  writings 
are  "all  too  grave  and  serious,  not  for  you  individually 
indeed,  but  for  those  'slumberers  inZion'  who  are  apt, 
you  know,  to  constitute  the  bulk  of  a  parlour  audience." 
in  another  he  is  evidently  declining  an  invitation  to  hear 
a  reading  of  Emerson's  in  Charles  Street :  — 

SwAMPScoTT,  May  1 1 
My  dear  Mrs.  Fields  :  — 

My  wife  —  who  has  just  received  your  kind  note  In 
rapid  route  to  the  Dedham  Profane  Asylum,  or  some- 
thing of  that  sort  — begs  leave  to  say,  through  me  as  a 
willing  and  sensitive  medium,  that  you  are  one  of  those 
arva  beata^  renowned  in  poetry,  which,  visit  them  never 
so  often,  one  is  always  glad  to  revisit,  which  are  attrac- 
tive in  all  seasons  by  their  own  absolute  light,  and  with- 


84  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

out  any  Emersonian  pansics  and  buttercups  to  make 
them  so.  This  enthusiastic  Dedhamitc  says  further,  in 
effect,  that  while  one  is  deeply  grateful  for  your  courte- 
ous offer  of  a  seat  upon  your  sofa  to  hear  the  Concord 
sage,  she  yet  prefers  the  material  banquet  you  summon 
us  to  in  your  dining-room,  since  there  wc  should  be  out 
ot  the  mist  and  able  to  discern  between  nature  and 
cookery,  between  what  cats  and  what  is  eaten  at  all 
events,  and  feel  a  thankful  mind  that  we  were  in  solid 
comfortable  Charles  Street,  instead  of  the  vague,  wide, 
weltering  galaxy,  and  should  be  sure  to  deem  Annie  and 
Jamie  (/  am  sure  of  Annie,  I  think  my  wife  feels  equally 
sure  of  Jamie)  lovelier  fireflies  than  ever  sparkled  in  the 
cold  empyrean.  But  alas,  who  shall  control  his  destiny  ? 
Not  my  wife,  whom  multitudinous  cares  enthrall;  nor 
yet  myself,  whom  a  couple  of  months'  enforced  illness 
now  constrains  to  a  preternatural  activity,  lest  the  world 
fail  of  salvation.  .  .  . 

P.  S.  \N  ho  did  contrive  the  comical  title  for  his  lec- 
ture—  "Philosophy  of  the  Pef)ple"?  I  suspect  it  was 
a  joke  of  J.  T.  V.  It  would  be  no  less  absurd  for  Emer- 
son himself  to  think  of  philosophizing  than  it  would  be 
tor  the  rose  to  think  of  botanizing.  Emerson  is  the  Di- 
vinely pompous  rose  of  the  philosophic  garden,  gorgeous 
with  colour  and  fragrance.  What  a  sad  lookout  there 
would  be  for  tulip  and  violet  and  lily  and  the  humble 
grape,  if  the  rose  should  turn  out  philosophic  gardener 
as  well !  Philosophy  of  the  people^  too  !  But  that  was 
Fields,  or  else  it  was  only  R.  W.  E.  after  dining  with  V. 
at  the  Union  Club  and  becoming  demoralized. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  85 

The  final  paragraph  of  a  single  other  note  suggests 
in  sum  the  relation  between  James  and  his  Charles 
Street  friends :  — 

Speaking  of  Mr.  Fields  always  reminds  me  of  various 
things  so  richly  endowed  in  the  creature  in  all  good 
gifts ;  but  the  dominant  consideration  in  my  mind  asso- 
ciated with  him  is  his  beautiful  home  and  there  chiefly 
that  atmosphere  and  faultless  womanly  worth  and  dig- 
nity which  fills  it  with  light  and  warmth  and  makes  it 
a  real  blessing  to  one's  heart  every  time  he  falls  within 
its  precincts.  Please  felicitate  the  wretch  for  me,  and 
believe  me,  my  dear  Mrs.  Fields, 

Your  true  friend  and  servant, 
July  8.  H.  J. 

Though  not  related  either  to  Alcott  or  to  Henry 
James,  the  following  entry,  on  October  16,  1863,  should 
be  preserved  —  and  as  well  in  this  place  as  in  another. 
It  refers  to  the  second  of  the  three  Josiah  Quincys  who 
were  mayors  of  Boston  in  the  course  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

Mr.  Josiah  Quincy  dropped  in  to  see  J.  T.  F.  He  had 
lately  been  traveling  in  the  West,  he  said.  People  com- 
plimented him  upon  his  youthful  appearance  and  his 
last  letter  to  the  President.  "I  am  glad  you  liked  the 
letter,"  he  said,  "but  my  father  wrote  it."  At  the  next 
town  people  pressed  his  hand  and  thanked  him  for 
his  staunch  adherence  to   the  Anti-slavery  cause    as 


86  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

expressed  in  the  "Liberator."  "Oh,"  his  reply  was,  "that 
was  my  brother  Edmund  Quincy  "  ;  a  little  farther  on  a 
friend  complimented  his  brilliant  story  in  the  last  "At- 
lantic" magazine.  "That  was  by  my  son  J.  P.  Quincy," 
he  was  obliged  to  answer.  I*'inally,  when  his  exploits  in 
the  late  wars  at  the  head  of  the  20th  Regiment  were 
recounted,  he  grew  impatient,  said  it  was  his  son 
Colonel  Quincy,  but  he  thought  it  high  time  he  came 
home,  instead  of  travelling  about  to  receive  the  com- 
pliments of  others. 


In  giving  the  title,  "Glimpses  of  Emerson,"  to  one 
of  the  chapters  in  her  "Authors  and  Friends,"  Mrs. 
Fields  described  accurately  the  use  she  made  of  her 
records  and  remembrances  of  that  serene  Olympian 
who  glided  in' and  out  of  Boston  to  the  awe  and 
delight  of  those  with  whom  he  came  into  personal  con- 
tact. "Olympian"  must  be  the  word,  since  "Augus- 
tan "  connotes  something  quite  too  mundane  to  suggest 
the  effect  produced  by  Emerson  upon  his  sympathetic 
contemporaries.  Did  they  realize,  I  wonder,  how  fit- 
ting it  was  that  this  prophet  of  the  harmonies  of  life 
should  live  in  a  place  the  name  of  which  is  spoken  by  all 
but  New  Englanders  as  if  it  signified  not  a  despairing 
/V  vic/is,  but  the  very  bond  of  peace  ?  All  the  adjec- 
tives of  benignity  have  been  bestowed  upon  Emerson. 
Mrs.  Fields's  "Glimpses"  of  him  suggest  that  atmos- 
phere, as  of  mountain  solitudes,  in  which  he  moved ; 
that  air  of  the  heights  which  those  who  moved  beside 


EMERSON 
From  the  marble  statve  by  Daniel  Chester  French  in  the  Concord  Public  Library 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  87 

him  were  fain  to  breathe.  His  "  Conversations  "  in  pub- 
lic and  private  places,  a  form  of  intellectual  refresh- 
ment suggested  by  Mrs.  Fields  and  conducted,  to 
Emerson's  large  material  advantage,  by  her  husband, 
appear  to-day  as  highly  characteristic  of  their  time,  — 
the  sixties  and  seventies,  —  and  the  light  thrown  upon 
them  by  her  journal  illuminates  not  only  him  and  her, 
but  the  whole  society  of  "superior  persons"  in  which 
Emerson  was  so  dominating  a  figure.  By  no  means  all 
of  that  light  escaped  from  her  manuscript  journals  to 
the  printed  page  of  "Authors  and  Friends."  In  the 
hitherto  unprinted  passages  now  given  there  are  fur- 
ther shafts  of  it,  sometimes  slender  in  themselves,  but 
joining  to  show  the  very  Emerson  that  came  and  went 
in  Charles  Street. 

There  was  a  furtive  humor  in  Emerson,  which  ex- 
pressed itself  more  accurately  in  his  own  words  than  in 
anything  written  about  him.  A  pleasant  trace  of  it  is 
found  in  a  note  to  Fields  addressed,  "My  dear  Editor," 
dated  "Concord,  October  5, 1866,"  and  containing  these 
words  :  "I  have  the  more  delight  in  your  marked  over- 
estimate of  my  poem,  that  I  had  been  vexed  with  a 
belief  that  what  skill  I  had  in  whistling  was  nearly  or 
quite  gone,  and  that  I  must  henceforth  content  myself 
with  guttural  consonants  or  dissonants,  and  not  attempt 
warbling." 

There  is  a  clear  application  of  the  Emersonian  phil- 
osophy to  domestic  matters  in  a  letter  written  by  Mrs. 
Emerson  to  Mrs.  Fields,  a  week  after  the  fire  which 
drove  the  poet's  family  from  his  house  at  Concord,  in 


88  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

the  summer  of  1872.  Mrs.  Fields  —  as  if  in  fulfillment 
of  Emerson's  words  on  the  proflFer  of  some  previous 
hospitality:  "Indeed  we  think  that  your  house  should 
have  that  name  inscribed  upon  it  —  'Hospitality'"  - 
had  invited  the  dislodged  Emersons  to  take  refuge 
under  her  roof.    Mrs.  Emerson,  replying,  wrote:  — 

We  are  most  happily  settled  in  the  "Old  Manse," 
where  our  cousin,  Miss  Ripley,  assures  us  we  can  be 
accommodated  —  to  her  satisfaction  as  well  as  our 
own  —  until  our  house  is  rebuilt.  Only  the  upper  half 
is  destroyed  and  we  shall,  I  trust,  so  well  restore  it  that 
you  will  not  know  —  when  we  shall  have  the  pleasure 
of  welcoming  you  there  —  except  for  its  fresh  appear- 
ance, that  anything  has  happened.  I  should  not  use 
such  a  word  as  "calamity,"  for  truly  the  whole  event  is 
a  blessing  rather  than  a  misfortune.  We  have  received 
such  warm  expressions  of  kindness  from  our  friends,  and 
have  witnessed  such  disinterested  action  and  brave 
daring  in  our  town's  people,  that  we  feel  —  in  addition 
to  our  happiness  in  the  sympathy  of  friends  in  other 
places  —  as  if  Concord  was  a  large  family  of  personal 
friends  and  well-wishers.  They  command  not  only  our 
gratitude  but  our  deep  respect,  for  their  loving  and 
personal  self-forgetfulness. 

Mr.  Emerson  and  Ellen  join  mc  in  affectionate  and 
grateful  acknowledgments  to  yourself  and  to  Mr.  Fields. 
Ever  your  friend, 

Lilian  Emersom 
Concord,  "July  ji,  1872. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  89 

It  is  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  mutual  relation  revealed 
in  many  letters  from  Emerson  and  his  household  to 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fields  that  the  following  reports  of  en- 
counters with  him  —  a  few  out  of  many  similar  pas- 
sages in  her  journals  —  should  be  read. 

December  3,  1863.  —  Last  Tuesday  Mr.  Emerson  lec- 
tured in  town.  Mrs.  E.  and  Edith  came  to  tea.  She  was 
troubled  because  she  was  a  little  late.  She  is  a  woman  of 
proud  integrity  and  real  sweetness.  She  has  an  awe  of 
words.  They  mean  so  much  to  her  that  her  lips  do  not 
unlock  save  for  truth  or  kindliness  or  beauty  or  wisdom. 
The  lecture  was  for  today  —  there  was  much  of  Carlyle, 
chastisement,  and  soul.  After  the  lecture  they  came 
home  with  us  and  about  20  friends.  Wendell  Phillips 
was  in  his  sweetest  mood.  He  spoke  of  Beecher  and 
Luther  and  of  the  vigorous,  healthy  hearts  of  these  men 
who  swayed  this  world.  He  said  Hallam  speaks  dis- 
paragingly of  Luther.  I  could  not  but  think  of  Sydney 
Smith's  friend  who  spoke  "disparagingly  of  the  Equa- 
tor." Alden  too  came  in  wearied  after  his  lecture.  Sena- 
tor Boutwell  spoke  in  praise  of  life  in  Washington,  the 
first  man.   Sunshiny  Edith  passed  the  night  with  us, 

January  5,  1864.  —  Mr.  Emerson  came  today  to  see 
J.  T.  F.  He  says  Mr.  Blake,  who  holds  the  letters  of 
Thoreau  in  his  hands,  is  a  terribly  conscientious  man, 
"a  man  who  would  even  return  a  borrowed  umbrella." 
He  became  acquainted  with  Blake  when  he  was  con- 
nected  with    theological    matters,    "and    he    believed 


90  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

wholly  in  me  at  that  time,  but  one  day  he  met  Thoreau 
and  he  never  came  to  my  house  afterwards.  His  con- 
scientiousness is  equalled  perhaps  by  that  of  George 
Bradford,  who  accompanied  us  once  to  hear  Mr.  Web- 
ster speak.  There  was  an  immense  crowd,  Mr.  Brad- 
ford became  separated  from  the  party,  and  was  swept 
into  a  capital  place  within  the  lines.  When  he  found 
himself  well  ensconced  in  front  of  the  speaker,  he  turned 
about  and  saw  us,  and  with  a  look  of  great  concern  said  : 
*I  have  no  ticket  for  this  place  and  I  can't  stay.*  We 
besought  him  not  to  be  so  foolish  as  to  give  up  the  place, 
but  nothing  would  tempt  him  to  keep  it." 
He  was  in  fine  mood. 

IVednesdayy  September  6.  —  Mr.  Emerson  went  to  see 
Mr.  Fields.  "There  are  fine  lines  in  Lowell's  Ode,"  he 
said.  "Yes,"  answered  J.  T.  F.,  "it  is  a  fine  poem."  "  I 
have  found  fine  lines  in  it,"  replied  the  seer.  "I  told 
Lowell  once,"  he  continued,  "that  his  humorous  poems 
gave  me  great  pleasure ;  they  were  worth  all  his  serious 
poetry.  He  tlid  not  take  it  very  well,  but  muttered,  'The 
Washers  of  the  Shroud,'  and  walked  away." 

J.  T.  F.  found  Emerson  sitting  by  the  window  in  his 
new  office,  highly  delighted  with  it. 

September  TfO^  1865.  —  Jamie  went  to  dine  with  the 
Saturday  Club.  Professor  Nichol  was  his  guest.  Sam. 
Ward  (Julia's  brother)  was  Longfellow's.  Lowell, 
Holmes,  Hoar,  Emerson  and  a  few  others  only  were 
present.  Judge  Hoar  related  an  amusing  anecdote  of 
having  sent  a  beautiful  basket  of  pears  to  the  Concord 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  91 

exhibition  this  year.  He  said  Mr.  Emerson  was  one  of 
the  judges,  and  he  thought  he  would  be  pleased  with  the 
pears  because  a  few  years  ago  he  was  in  the  garden  one 
day  and,  observing  that  very  tree,  which  was  not  then 
very  flourishing,  had  told  Judge  Hoar  that  more  iron 
and  more  animal  matter  were  needed  in  the  soil.  "  Forth- 
with," said  the  Judge,  "I  planted  all  my  old  iron  kettles 
and  a  cat  and  a  dog  at  the  foot  of  the  tree  and  these 
pears  were  the  result.  I  have  kept  two  favorite  terriers 
ready  to  plant  if  necessary  beside,  but  the  fruit  for  the 
present  seems  well  enough  without  them." 

Judge  Hoar  said  also  that  he  knew  a  man  once  with  a 
prodigious  memory ;  before  dinner  he  could  recall  Gen- 
eral Washington,  after  dinner  he  remembered  Chris- 
topher Columbus ! 

Saturday y  October  ^^  1865.  —  Tuesday,  3,  Edith  Emer- 
son was  married  to  William  Forbes.  The  old  house 
threw  wide  its  hospitable  doors  and  the  stairway  and 
rooms  were  covered  with  leaves  and  flowers  and  the 
whole  place  was  as  beautiful  as  earthly  radiance  and  joy 
can  make  a  home.  Poor  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  laden  with 
her  many  sorrows,  threw  off  her  black  robe  for  that  day 
that  she  might  rejoice  with  others.  Edith  made  her  own 
marriage  wreath,  and  even  Mr.  Emerson  wore  white 
gloves.  Old  Mrs.  Ripley  and  many  aged  and  many 
beautiful  persons  were  there. 

In  1 866  Emerson,  long  exiled  from  the  good  graces  of 
his  Alma  Mater,  was  restored  to  them  by  the  bestowal  of 
an  honorary  degree.    In  1867  the  restoration  was  com- 


92  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

pleted  by  his  election  as  an  Overseer  of  Harvard  College 
and  his  appearance,  after  an  interval  of  thirty  years,  as 
the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  orator.  In  this  capacity  he  read  his 
address  on  the  "Progress  of  Culture"  on  July  i8,  1867. 
Of  the  manner  in  which  he  did  it,  and  of  the  effect  he 
produced  on  his  hearers,  Lowell  wrote  immediately  to 
Norton,  in  a  letter  often  quoted,  "He  boggled,  he  lost 
his  place,  he  had  to  put  on  his  glasses ;  but  it  was  as  if  a 
creature  from  some  fairer  world  had  lost  his  way  in  our 
fogs,  and  it  was  owr  fault,  not  his."  "Phi  Beta  Day"  was 
still  a  local  festival  of  much  brilliance,  which  was  thus 
reflected  in  1867  on  the  pages  of  Mrs.  Fields's  journal. 

Thursday  J  July  18,  1867.  —  Arose  at  five  and  worked 
in  my  garden  until  breakfast.  Then  it  was  time  to  dress 
for  Phi  Beta  at  Cambridge.  We  drove  out,  leaving 
home  at  nine  o'clock.  We  expected  Professor  .Andrew  D. 
White  to  g(j  with  us,  but  he  called  still  earlier  to  say  he 
had  been  summoned  to  a  business  meeting  by  President 
Hill.  The  day  was  soft  and  pleasant  with  a  clouded  sky. 
We  were  among  the  first  on  the  ground,  but  we  had  the 
pleasure  of  waiting  a  few  moments  to  see  our  friends 
arrive  before  we  were  admitted  to  the  church.  Only 
ladies  went  in.  I  went  with  Mrs.  Quincy,  the  poet's  ^ 
wife  (poet  for  the  day,  for  he  is  apt  to  disclaim  this 
title  usually),  and  we  found  good  places  in  the  gallery  ; 
by  and  by,  however,  Mrs.  Dana  beckoned  to  me  to  come 
and  sit  with  them,  so  I  changed  my  seat  to  a  place  on 
the  lower  floor.   It  was  an  impressive  sight  to  see  those 

'  Josiah  Phillips  Quincy. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  93 

men  come  in  (though  they  kept  us  waiting  until  twelve 
o'clock) — Lowell,  Emerson,  Dana,  Hale,  and  all  the 
good  brave  men  we  have  with  few  exceptions.  First 
came  Quincy's  poem,  then  Mr.  Emerson's  address  — 
both  excellent  after  the  manner  of  the  men.  Poor  Mr. 
E.'s  MSS.  was  in  inextricable  confusion,  and  in  spite  of 
the  chivalry  of  E.  E.  Hale,  who  hunted  up  a  cushion  that 
he  might  see  better,  the  whole  -matter  seemed  at  first 
out  of  joint  in  the  reader's  eyes.  However  that  may  have 
been,  it  was  far  from  out  of  joint  in  our  eyes,  being  noble 
in  aim  and  influence,  magnetic,  imaginative.  I  felt 
grateful  that  I  had  lived  till  that  moment  and  as  if  I 
might  come  home  to  live  and  work  better.  Thank 
Heaven  for  such  a  master !  He  was  evidently  put  out 
and  angry  with  himself  for  his  disorder  and,  taking  Mr. 
Fields's  arm  as  he  came  from  the  assembly,  had  to  be 
somewhat  reassured  that  it  was  not  an  utter  failure. 

Mrs.  Dana  tried  to  carry  me  to  lunch,  most  kindly. 
I  could  not  make  up  my  mind  to  go  anywhere  after 
what  I  had  heard,  but  for  a  moment  to  see  if  the  good 
Jameses  were  well,  and  thence  homeward.  It  seemed, 
if  I  could  ever  work,  it  must  be  then. 

At  half-past  six  Jamie  returned  from  the  dinner, 
where  J.  R.  Lowell  presided  in  the  most  elegant  and  bril- 
liant manner.  In  calling  out  Agassiz  he  told  the  story 
of  the  sailor  who  was  swallowed  by  a  whale  and  finding 
time  rather  heavy  on  his  hands  thought  he  would  in- 
scribe his  name  on  the  bridge  of  bone  above  his  head ; 
but  looking  for  a  place,  jack-knife  in  hand,  he  found 
that  Jonah  was  before  him  —  so  he  said  Agassiz,  etc. 


94  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

And  of  Holmes  he  said  that  the  Professor  and  himself 
were  like  two  buckets  in  a  well :  when  one  of  them  pre- 
sided at  a  dinner,  the  other  made  it  a  point  to  bring  a 
poem;  when  one  bucket  came  up  full,  the  other  went 
down  empty.  And  so  on  through  all.  Phillips  Brooks, 
the  distinguished  preacher  of  Philadelphia,  was  there, 
and  many  other  men  of  note. 

Out  of  the  many  notes  relating  to  Emerson's  lectures, 
a  few  passages  may  be  taken  as  typical.  Perhaps  the 
best  unpublished  pages  are  those  on  which  the  philos- 
opher is  seen,  with  his  wife  and  daughter,  against  the 
social  background  of  the  time  and  place. 

October  19,  1868.  —  The  weeks  spin  away  so  fast  I 
have  no  time  for  records,  and  yet  last  Sunday  and  Mon- 
day we  had  two  pleasant  parties,  especially  Monday, 
after  Mr.  Emerson's  first  lecture.  We  were  I4  at  supper. 
Mrs.  Putnam  and  Miss  Oakcy  among  the  guests,  but 
the  Emersons,  who  are  always  pleased  and  always  full 
of  kindliness,  enjoyment,  and  Christianity,  I  believe  give 
more  pleasure  than  they  receive  wherever  they  are 
entertained.  Edward  is  full  of  his  grape-culture  in 
Milton,  Ellen  full  of  good  works,  Mrs.  Emerson  very 
hot  against  her  brother's  opponents,  Morton  and  those 
who  take  sides  with  him  now  that  Morton  himself  is  in 
the  earth-mould  first.'  Mr.  Emerson,  alive  and  alert  on 
all  topics,  talked  openly  of  the  untruthfulness  of  the 

'  An  .illusion  to  the  controversy  over  the  claims  of  Dr,  Jackson  anJ 
Dr.  Morton  to  the  discovery  of  ether. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  95 

Peabodys,  of  the  beauty  of  "  Charles  Auchester,"  of  Mr. 
Alcott's  school,  of  Dana's  politics  as  superior  perhaps 
to  Butler  and  yet  not  altogether  sound  and  worthy,  con- 
servatism being  so  deep  in  his  blood. 

Thursday  we  drove  our  friends  to  Milton  Blue  Hill 
after  the  Emersons  had  gone,  returned  to  dine  and 
Selwyn's  theatre  in  the  evening.  Herman  Merivale  was 
of  the  party  —  son  of  Thackeray's  friend.  The 
Stephens  went  on  Wednesday.  Thursday  we  dined  in 
Milton  with  Mrs.  Silsbee;  it  was  a  wet  nasty  day. 
Friday,  Saturday  and  Sunday  we  were  quietly  enough 
here,  Jamie  with  a  fearful  cold.  Surely  all  this  is  unim- 
portant enough  as  regards  ourselves;  but  I  like  to  re- 
member when  Mr.  Emerson  came  and  what  he  said  and 
how  he  looked,  for  it  is  a  pure  benediction  to  see  him 
and  I  honor  and  love  him. 

February  20,  1869.  —  Heard  Emerson  again,  and 
Laura  was  with  me ;  we  drank  up  every  word  eagerly. 
He  read  Donne,  Daniel,  and  especially  Herbert;  also 
vers  de  societe;  the  facility  of  these  old  divines  giving 
them  a  power  akin  to  what  has  produced  these  familiar 
rhymes. 

He  said  Herbert  was  full  of  holy  quips ;  fond  of  using 
a  kind  of  irony  towards  God,  and  quoted  appropriately. 
Beautiful  things  of  Herrick,  too,  he  read,  but  treated 
Vaughan  rather  unjustly,  we  thought. 

Lowell  sat  just  behind;  I  could  imagine  his  running 
commentary  on  many  of  Mr.  Emerson's  remarks,  which 
were  often  more  Emersonian  than  universal,  or  true. 
The  facility  of  the  old  poets  seemed  to  impress  him  with 


96  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

almost  undue  reverence.  He  Is  extremely  natural  and 
easy  in  manner  and  speech  during  these  readings.  He 
bent  his  brows  and  shut  his  eyes,  endeavoring  to  recall 
a  passage  from  Ben  Jonson  as  if  we  were  at  his  own 
dinner-table,  and  at  hist  when  he  gave  it  up  said,  "It 
is  all  the  more  provoking  as  I  do  not  doubt  many  a 
friend  here  might  help  me  out  with  it." 

His  respect  for  literature,  often  in  these  degenerate 
days  smiled  upon  from  some  imaginary  hills  by  sur- 
rounding multitudes,  is  absolute  and  regnant.  It  is 
religion  and  life,  ;uul  he  reiterating  them  in  every 
form. 

The  first  and  second  of  the  "Conversations"  arranged 
for  Emerson  by  Fields  are  duly  described  in  the  journal. 
In  the  evening  that  followed  the  second,  Emerson  and 
his  daughter  dined  at  Charles  Street,  in  company  with 
Longfellow  and  his  daughter  Alice,  William  Morris 
Hunt  and  his  wife.  Dr.  Holmes,  and  the  Fieldses.  The 
scene  and  talk  were  recorded  by  the  hostess. 

.  .  .  Coming  home,  Ellen's  trunk  had  not  arrived, 
so  she  came,  like  a  gcK)d  child,  most  difficult  in  a  woman 
grown,  to  dinner  in  her  travelling  dress.  Alice  Long- 
fellow looked  very  pretty  in  a  polonaise  of  lovely  olive 
brown  over  black;  a  little  feather  of  the  same  color  in 
her  hair.  Rooshue  [Mrs.  flunt]  and  her  husband  came 
in  their  everydays  too.  I  wore  a  lilac  polonaise  with 
a  yellow  rose  —  I  speak  of  the  latter  because  it  seemed 
to  please  W.  M.  Hunt  to  see  the  dash  of  color.  .  .  . 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  97 

Hunt  convulsed  us  with  a  story  of  seeing  a  man  run 
through  by  an  iron  bolt,  when  a  distinguished  physi- 
cian is  called  in;  the  physician  asks  if  he  can  sleep 
well,  and  a  thousand  and  one  questions  of  like  rele- 
vancy, to  all  of  which  the  patient  only  replies  by  gasps 
of  agony.  Hunt  acted  the  whole  scene  famously.  The 
sunset  too  delighted  him  as  it  gilded  the  old  sheds  back 
of  the  house  and  made  them  "like  Solomon's  temple." 
Longfellow  has  written  to  Miss  Rossetti,  the  author  of 
the  "Shadow  of  Dante,"  to  thank  her  for  her  pleasant 
book.  He  asks  her  the  difficult  question  why  Dante 
puts  Venus  nearest  the  sun.  Also  he  points  out  her 
fault  of  saying  the  spirits  of  the  blest  inhabited  the 
planets,  whereas  Dante  clearly  states  that  they  all 
lived  in  one  heaven  but  visited  the  planets. 

The  truth  of  Hawthorne's  tale  of  the  minister  with 
the  black  veil  was  hunted  up.  His  name  was  Moody 
and  he  was  one  of  the  Emerson  family.  It  seems  the 
poor  man  in  his  youth  shot  a  boy  by  accident,  and  as 
he  grew  older  a  morbid  temper  settled  upon  him  and  he 
did  not  think  himself  fit  to  preach;  so  he  withdrew 
from  the  ministry  but  taught  a  smajl  school,  always 
wore  a  black  veil,  literally  a  handkerchief.  Ellen  said 
her  aunt  was  taught  by  him  and  she  appeared  anxious 
to  set  the  matter  right.  Rose  Hawthorne  and  her  hus- 
band have  been  to  see  Mr.  Emerson,  and  he  likes  them 
both  well ;  thinks  Rose  looks  happy  and  the  young  man 
promising,  which  is  much.  There  is  hope  of  Una's 
recovery  and  return. 

After  dinner,  we  ladies  looked  over  manuscripts  for 


98  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

a  time  until  Longfellow  went  —  when  Mrs.  Hunt  went 
to  the  piano  and  played  and  sang.  Finally  he  came,  and 
they  sang  their  little  ducts  together  and  afterward  she 
sang  a  song  with  words  by  Channing  about  a  pine  tree, 
set  to  a  scrap  of  a  sonata  by  Helen  Bell,  and  after  that  a 
touching  German  song  with  English  words  —  then  she 
read  Cciia's  [Mrs.  Thaxter's]  new  poem  to  Mr.  Emerson, 
called  "The Tryst."  She  read  it  only  pretty  well,  which 
disgusted  her ;  and  she  said  it  reminded  her  of  William's 
reading,  which  was  the  worst  she  ever  knew ;  he  could 
literally  stop  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence  because  it 
happened  to  be  the  bottom  of  a  page,  and  ask  her  what 
it  meant.  At  that  he  took  Celia's  poem  and  reail  it 
through  wortl  for  word  like  a  school-boy,  K)oking  up  at 
her  to  see  if  he  was  right  and  should  go  on.  She  laughed 
immotlerately,  and  as  for  Mr.  Emerson,  J.  said  his  eyes 
left  their  wonted  sockets  and  went  to  laugh  far  back  in 
his  brain. 

Putting  down  his  book.  Hunt  launched  off  into  his 
own  life  as  a  painter.  His  lonely  position  here  without 
anyone  to  lcK)k  up  to  in  his  art  —  his  idea  of  art  being 
entirely  misunderstood,  his  determination  wo/  to  paint 
cloth  and  cheeks,  but  to  paint  the  glory  of  age  and  the 
light  of  truth.  He  became  almost  too  excited  to  find 
words,  but  when  he  did  grasp  a  phrase,  it  was  such  a 
fine  one  that  it  went  a  great  way.  His  wife  sat  by  mak- 
ing running  comments,  but  when  he  said,  "If  any  man 
who  was  talking  could  not  be  heard,  he  would  naturally 
try  to  talk  so  that  he  could  be  heard,"  we  tried  to  urge 
him  to  stand  firm  and  to  assure  him  that  his  efforts  were 


A  CORNER  OF  THE  CHARLES  STREET  LIBRARY 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  99 

neither  lost  nor  in  vain.  "If  the  books  you  wrote  were 
left  all  dusty  and  untouched  upon  the  shelves,  don't 
you  think  you  would  try  to  write  so  that  people  should 
want  them  ?  I  am  sure  you  would."  His  wife  tried  to 
say  he  must  stand  in  the  way  he  knew  was  right  —  as 
did  we  all  —  but  he  seemed  to  think  it  too  hard,  too 
Sisyphus-like  a  labor.  The  portrait  of  little  Paul  is 
still  unsold.  After  keeping  the  carriage  waiting  one  hour 
and  a  half,  they  went  —  a  most  interesting  pair. 

Tuesday  J  April  23.  —  Shakespeare's  birthday.  Emer- 
son and  his  daughter  passed  the  night  with  us  and 
Edith  Davidson,  Ellen's  "daughter,"  came  to  break- 
fast. We  talked  over  again  the  pleasure  of  the  night 
before.  Emerson  had  never  heard  Hunt  talk  before  and 
had  seldom  found  Longfellow  so  expansive.  Holmes 
met  J.  in  the  course  of  the  day,  and  told  him  he  had 
a  real  good  time,  though  he  did  have  a  thumping  head- 
ache —  he  was  much  pleased  with  Alice  Longfellow. 

Tuesday^  May  21.  —  Call  from  Mr.  Emerson,  Mrs.  E. 
and  Ellen.  They  came  in  a  body  to  thank  me,  which 
Mrs.  Emerson  did  in  a  little  set  speech  after  her  own 
fashion,  at  which  we  all  laughed  heartily  —  especially 
at  the  "profit"  clause.  Indeed  we  had  a  very  merry 
time  altogether.  Mr.  Emerson  gave  "Queenie"  per- 
mission to  look  all  about  the  room,  "for  indeed  there 
was  not  such  another  in  all  Boston  —  no  indeed  [half 
soliloquizing],  not  such  another."  Then  he  looked  about 
and  told  them  the  wrong  names  of  the  painters,  and 
would  have  been  entirely  satisfied  if  he  had  not  referred 
to  me,  when  I  was  obliged  to  tell  the  truth  and  so  from 


lOO 


MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 


that  time  he  made  me  speaker.  He  said  he  should  do 
his  very  best  for  the  university  class  for  women  for  next 
December  to  make  up  for  having  served  them  so  badly 
this  winter.    He  said  I  had  very  goitly  reminded  him  of 


^^J^<^<^^S>A..-!J2^  p-.^ 


%: 


^^^^ 


^CuL.'''y^yC'<^    jyCC-'^^^tsC^     , 


From  a  no/e  of  Ei 


I's  to  Afrs.  I'icLis 


his  entire  forgetfulness  to  fulfil  an  engagement  or  half- 
engagement  to  come  to  speak  to  them  this  winter. 
"Queenie"  told  me  she  was  one  of  the  few  persons  who 
had  read  Miss  Mitford's  poems,  "Blanche"  and  all  the 
rest,  and  liked  them  very  much.  So  the  various  por- 
traits of  the  old  lady  interested  her  much. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  loi 

They  came  down  to  Boston,  Mrs.  E.  said,  on  purpose 
to  make  this  call.  I  had  just  returned  home  from  along 
drive  about  town  on  business,  so  it  was  the  best  possible 
moment  for  me. 

Our  first  thought  this  morning  (J's.  and  mine)  was, 
how  could  Mr.  Emerson  finish  his  course  of  "  Conversa- 
tions," which  had  been  so  brilliant  until  the  last,  in  so 
unsatisfactory  a  manner.  His' matter  was  for  the  most 
part  old,  and  he  finished  with  reading  well-known  hymns 
of  Dr.  Watts  and  Mrs.  Barbauld.  I  fear  we  were  all 
disappointed.  Some  of  the  lectures  (especially  the  one 
on  "Love")  have  been  so  fine  that  we  were  bitterly 
disappointed. 

A  later  reference  to  Emerson  shows  him  in  Philadel- 
phia, and  through  the  eyes  of  a  qualified  observer  there. 
The  passage  was  written  at  Manchester-by-the-Sea,  to 
which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fields  had  begun  to  pay  summer 
visits  even  before  1872,  and  where  they  soon  acquired 
that  cottage  of  their  own  on  "Thunderbolt  Hill,"  which 
belied  its  name  in  serving  as  the  most  peaceful  of  retreats 
for  Mrs.  Fields  and  the  friends  she  was  constantly  sum- 
moning to  her  side  through  all  the  remainder  of  her  life. 

Tuesday^  August  25,  1872.  —  Miss  A.  Whitney  came 
Saturday  and  remained  until  Monday  morning.  Sun- 
day evening  we  passed  at  Mrs.  Towne's.  Mrs.  Annis 
Wister^  of  Pennsylvania  had  just  arrived,  a  dramatic 

^  Daughter  of  the  Rev.  William  Henry  Furness,  of  Philadelphia,  and  trans- 
lator of  German  novels. 


I02  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

creature,  who  tells  and  tells  again  at  request,  with  as 
much  amiability  as  talent,  her  wonderful  story  of 
Father  Donne,  the  Irish  priest,  who  performed  the 
marriage  ceremony  for  one  of  her  servants.  Mrs.  Wis- 
ter,  in  spite  of  a  lisp,  has  a  thoroughly  clear  enuncia- 
tion. She  never  leaves  a  sentence  unfinished  nor  suffers 
the  imagination  to  complete  any  corner  of  her  picture. 
She  is  exceedingly  lively  and  witty,  and  Miss  Whitney, 
whose  mind  is  quite  different  and  altogether  introverted, 
busied  over  her  artistic,  conceptions,  could  not  help  a 
feeling  of  envy.  The  gift  of  narration,  so  rare  in  this 
country,  has  been  carefully  cultivated  by  Mrs.  Wister, 
and  poor  Miss  Whitney  could  only  wonder  and  admire. 
I  could  see  her  fine  large  eyes  glow  with  pleasure  and 
desire  as  she  listened  to  her.  Mrs.  Wister  told  me  an  odd 
thing,  which  shows  her  as  an  imlividual.  She  asked  me 
how  the  testimonial  to  Mr.  Emerson  was  progressing,  as 
her  father  was  much  interested  and  thought  nothing  he 
possessed  too  good  to  be  given  at  once  to  Mr.  Emerson, 
nor  indeed  worthy  of  his  acceptance,  and  she  would  like 
to  write  him.  I  told  her  I  believed  the  sum  had  reached 
^10,000,  and  had  already  been  presented.  This  led  her 
to  say  the  friendship  of  her  father  for  Mr.  Emerson, 
and  indeed  their  mutual  friendship,  as  she  then  believed 
it  to  be,  dated  back  to  their  youth,  when  Mr.  Emerson 
was  first  writing  his  poems  and  delighting  over  the 
illustrations  her  father  would  make  for  them.  As  she 
grew  up,  she  became  dissatisfied  at  the  relation  be- 
tween them.  She  thought  Mr.  Furness,  her  father, 
gave  much  more  to  Mr.  Emerson  in  the  way  of  friend- 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  103 

ship  than  Mr.  Emerson  ever  appreciated.  This  went 
on  until  she  became  about  eighteen  years  of  age,  when 
Mr.  Emerson  chanced  to  be  visiting  them  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. One  day  she  was  standing  upon  the  stairs  near 
the  front  door,  and  Mr.  Emerson  was  ready  to  go  out 
and  waiting  there  for  her  father,  who  had  withdrawn 
for  a  moment.  Her  heart  was  full,  and  suddenly  she 
turned  upon  Mr.  Emerson,  and  said,  "Mr.  Emerson,  I 
think  you  cannot  know  what  a  treasure  you  have  in 
this  friendship  of  my  father.  He  loves  you  dearly  and 
I  fear  you  cannot  appreciate  what  it  is  to  have  the  love 
of  such  a  man  as  my  father."  She  says  to  this  day  she 
grows  "pank,"  as  the  Scotchman  said,  all  over  at  such 
presumption,  but  she  could  not  help  it. 

I  asked  what  Mr.  Emerson  replied.  He  looked  sur- 
prised, she  said,  and  cast  his  eyes  down,  and  then  said 
earnestly  that  he  knew  and  felt  deeply  how  unworthy 
he  was  to  enjoy  the  riches  of  such  a  friendship. 

This  incident  presented  Mrs.  Wister  as  well  as  Mr. 
Emerson  under  a  keen  light.  They  could  never  under- 
stand each  other. 

From  October,  1872,  until  the  following  May,  Emer- 
son and  his  daughter  Ellen  were  traveling  abroad.  On 
their  return  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  in  her  journal :  — 

Thursday,  May  27,  1873.  —  The  Nortons  came  home 
with  the  Emersons  day  before  yesterday.  Emerson 
came  to  pass  an  hour  with  J.  T.  F.  before  going  to  Con- 
cord. His  son  Edward  had  come  down  to  meet  him  and 


104  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

was  full  of  excitement  over  the  reception  his  father  was 
to  receive  and  of  which  he  was  altogether  ignorant.  He 
was  overjoyed  to  be  on  the  old  ground  again  and  comes 
back  to  value  the  old  friends  even  more  than  ever.  He 
must  have  been  much  pleased  by  the  joy  testified  in 
Concord,  but  we  have  only  the  newspaper  account  of 
that.  He  has  been  feted  more  than  ever  in  England,  and 
Ellen  was  rather  worn  out  by  the  ovations;  but  her 
general  health  is  much  improved.  The  Nortons,  who 
returned  In  the  same  steamer,  tell  me  Miss  Emerson 
was  feted  for  her  own  sake  and  was  his  rival !  Her 
"American  manners"  became  all  the  rage  in  that  world 
of  novelty.  One  night  a  gentleman  sitting  next  her  at 
dinner  introduced  the  word  "esthetic."  She  said  she 
did  not  understand  what  he  meant  by  that  word ! 

On  the  voyage  Emerson  was  devoted  to  his  daughter 
and  full  of  fun  in  all  his  talk  with  her.  He  would  tuck 
her  up  in  blanket  shawls  and  go  up  and  down,  hither 
and  yon,  to  make  her  comfortable  —  then  he  would 
laugh  at  her  for  being  such  an  exacting  young  lady  and 
would  be  very  ironical  about  the  manner  in  which  she 
would  allow  him  to  wait  on  her.  "And  yet,"  he  said, 
turning  U)  the  Nortons,  "Ellen  is  the  torch  of  religion 
at  ht)me." 

Throughout  the  journals  Mrs.  Fields's  references  to 
meetings  of  the  Saturday  Club,  and  the  records  of  con- 
versations reported  by  her  husband  after  these  lively 
gatherings,  are  frequent.  In  one  brief  entry  Parkman, 
Lowell,  and  Emerson  appear  in  a  conjunction  that  could 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  105 

hardly  have  been  happy  at  the  moment,  but  the  con- 
cKidlng  words  of  the  passage  may  well  stand,  for  their 
appreciation  of  Emerson,  at  the  end  of  these  pages  con- 
cerned chiefly  with  him. 

August  26,  1874.  —  •  •  •  Parkman  said  to  Lowell, 
and  a  more  strange  evidence  of  lapse  of  tact  could  hardly 
be  discovered,  "Lowell,  what  did  you  mean  by  *  the  land 
of  broken  promise'?"  Emerson,  catching  at  this  last, 
said,  "What  is  this  about  the  land  of  broken  promise  ?" 
clearly  showing  he  had  never  read  Lowell's  Ode  upon  the 
death  of  Agassiz  —  whereat  Lowell  answered  not  at  all, 
but  dropped  his  eyes  and  silence  succeeded,  although 
Parkman  made  some  kind  of  futile  attempt  to  struggle 
out  of  it.  Emerson  said,  "We  have  met  two  great  losses 
in  our  Club  since  you  were  last  here  —  Agassiz  and 
Sumner."  "Yes,"  said  Lowell,  "but  a  greater  than 
either  was  that  of  a  man  I  could  never  make  you  believe 
in  as  I  did  —  Hawthorne."  This  ungracious  speech 
silenced  even  Emerson,  whose  warm  hospitality  to  the 
thought  and  speech  of  others  is  usually  unending. 


In  "Authors  and  Friends"  Mrs.  Fields  concerned 
herself  with  Longfellow  and  Whittier  at  even  greater 
length  than  with  Holmes  and  Emerson.  The  Whit- 
tier paper,  besides,  was  printed  as  a  small  separate  vol- 
ume; and  in  Samuel  T.  Pickard's  "Life  of  Whittier," 
as  in  Samuel  Longfellow's  biography  of  his  brother, 
the  letters  from  Whittier,  as  from  Longfellow,  to  Mrs. 
Fields,  and  to  her  husband,  bear  witness  to  valued 


io6  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

intimacies.  Neither  to  Whittier  nor  to  Longfellow, 
therefore,  does  it  seem  desirable  to  devote  a  special 
section  of  these  papers ;  nor  yet  to  L<iwcll,  who  never 
became  the  subject  of  published  reminiscences  by  Mrs. 
Fields,  perhaps   for   the  very  reason  that  he   figures 

/>«'    ^wf.  ^*^^   fxy    Px^/s^ 

^  Li/  J  fl^^  jc::^: 

A<.   L/^^^X  t0   fair  A^w- 

luicsiniiU   of  aulos^raph    inscription   on   a   pholop-aph    of  Rowse's 
crayon  portrait  of  Ijowell  given  to  Fields 

somewhat  less  frequently  than  the  others  in  her  jour- 
nal. Yet  there  are  many  allusions  to  him,  and  in  addi- 
tion to  the  letters  to  Fields  which  Norton  selected  for 
his  "Letters  of  James  Russell  Lowell,"  and  Scudder 


JAMES  RUSSELL   LOWELL 
From  the  crayon  portrait  by  Rowse  in  the  Harvard  College  Library 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  107 

for  his  biography  of  Lowell,  a  surprising  number 
of  unprinted,  characteristic  communications,  both  to 
Fields  and  to  his  wife,  testify  to  their  friendship.  The 
remainder  of  this  chapter  cannot  be  more  profitably 
employed  than  by  drawing  from  Mrs.  Fields's  journal 
passages  relating  to  these  and  other  local  guests  of 
the  Charles  Street  house,  and  supplementing  the  diary 
especially  with  a  few  of  Lowell's  sprightly  letters  to 
his  successor  in  the  editorship  of  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly."  It  may  be  remarked,  as  fairly  indicative 
of  the  relations  between  Lowell  and  the  Fieldses 
through  many  years,  that  when  they  visited  England 
in  1869  their  traveling  companion  was  Lowell's  daugh- 
ter Mabel. 

Here,  to  begin  with,  is  a  note  written  to  accom- 
pany one  of  Lowell's  most  familiar  poems,  "After  the 
Burial,"  when  he  sent  the  manuscript  to  the  editor  of 
the  "Atlantic."  Lowell's  practice  of  shunning  capitals 
at  the  beginning  of  his  letters,  except  for  the  first 
personal  pronoun,  is  observed  m  the  quotations  that 
follow :  — 

Elmwood,  8M  March^  1868 

My  dear  Fields  :  — 

when  I  am  in  a  financial  crisis,  which  is  on  an  average 
once  in  six  weeks,  I  look  first  to  my  portfolio  and  then 
to  you.  The  verses  I  send  you  are  most  of  them  more 
than  of  age,  but  Professors  don't  write  poems,  and  I 
even  begin  to  doubt  if  poets  do  —  always.  But  I  sup- 
pose you  will  pay  me  for  my  name  as  you  do  others,  and 


io8  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

so  I  send  the  verses  hoping  you  may  also  find  something 
in  them  that  is  worth  praise  if  not  coin.  Consolation 
and  commonplace  are  twin  sisters  and  I  doubt  not  one 
sat  at  each  ear  of  Eve  after  Cain's  misunderstanding 
with  his  brother.  In  some  folks  they  cause  resentment, 
and  this  little  burst  relieved  mine  under  some  desper- 
ate solacings  after  the  death  of  our  first  child,  twenty- 
one  years  ago.  I  trust  there  is  nothing  too  immediately 
personal  to  myself  in  the  poem  to  make  the  publishing 
of  it  a  breach  of  that  confidence  which  a  man  should 
keep  sacred  with  himself. 

With  kind  regards  to  Mrs.  Fields,  I  remain  always 
yours, 

J.    R.   FoWF.I.L 

Another  typical  letter,  dated  "Elmwood,  12th  July, 
1868,  M  to  9  AM  wind  W.  by  N.  Therm  88°,"  be- 
gins:— 

Mv  DKAR  Fields  :  — 

as  I  swelter  here,  it  is  some  consolation  for  mc  that 
you  are  roasting  in  that  Yankee-baker  which  we  call 
the  \V"  M".  That  repercussion  of  the  sun's  heat  from 
so  many  angles  at  once  (the  focus  being  the  tourist)  al- 
ways struck  me  as  one  of  the  sublimest  examples  of  the 
unvarying  operation  of  natural  laws.  I  wish  you  and 
Mrs.  Fields  might  be  made  exceptions,  but  it  can  hardly 
be  hoped. 

Before  the  end  of  the  month  Fields  had  escaj^d  the 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  109 

perils  of  New  Hampshire  heat,  and  paid  a  visit  to  Ehn- 
wood,  thus  chronicled  by  Mrs.  Fields :  — 

July  25,  1868.  —  J.  went  out  to  see  Lowell  last  night. 
As  he  passed  Longfellow's  door,  "Trap,"  the  dog,  was 
half-asleep  apparently  on  the  lawn,  but  hearing  a  foot- 
step he  leaped  up  and,  seeing  who  it  was,  became  over- 
joyed, leaped  upon  him  and  covered  his  hands  with 
caresses.  He  stayed  some  time  playing  with  him.  Low- 
ell was  alone  in  his  library,  looking  into  an  empty  fire- 
place and  smoking  a  pipe.  He  has  been  in  Newport  for 
a  week,  but  was  delighted  to  return  to  find  his  "own 
sponge  hanging  on  its  nail"  and  to  his  books.  He  had 
become  quite  morbid  because,  while  J.  was  away,  a 
smaller  sum  than  usual  was  sent  him  for  his  last  poem. 
He  thought  it  a  delicate  way  of  saying  they  wished  to 
drop  him.  He  was  annoyed  at  the  thought  of  having 
left  out  of  his  article  on  Dryden  one  of  the  finest  points, 
he  thought,  that  was  making  Dryden  to  appear  the 
"Rubens"  of  literature,  which  he  appears  to  him  to  be. 

Lowell  is  a  man  deeply  pervaded  with  fine  discontents. 
I  do  not  believe  the  most  favorable  circumstances  would 
improve  him.  Success,  of  which  he  has  a  very  small 
share  considering  his  deserts  (for  his  books  have  a  nar- 
row circulation),  would  make  him  gayer  and  happier; 
whether  so  wise  a  man,  I  cannot  but  doubt. 

He  wears  a  chivalric,  tender  manner  to  his  wife. 

In  the  following  autumn.  Bayard  Taylor  and  his 
wife  were  paying  a  visit  in  Charles  Street,  and  Lowell 


no  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

appears  in  Mrs.  Fields's  journal  as  one  of  the  friends 
summoned  in  their  honor. 


Thursday  mor?nfigy  November  19,  1868.  —  Mr.  Parton 
came  to  breakfast  and  Dr.  Holmes  came  in  before  we 
had  quite  done.  O.  W.  H.  was  delighted  to  see  Mr.  P., 
because  of  his  papers  on  "Smoking  and  Drinking."  He 
believes  smoking  paralyzes  the  will.  Taylor,  on  the  con- 
trary, feels  himself  better  for  smoking;  it  subdues  his 
physical  energy  so  he  can  write;  otherwise  he  is  nervous 
to  be  up  and  away  and  his  mind  will  not  work. 

At  dinner  we  had  Lowell,  Parton,  Mr.  ami  Mrs. 
Taylor,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Scott-Siddons  and,  later,  Aldrich. 
Lowell  talked  most  interestingly,  head  and  shoulders 
beyond  everybody  else.  The  Siddonses  left  early,  the 
gentlemen  all  smitten  by  her  beauty  and  loveliness.  A 
kind  of  chiKlish  grace  pervailed  her  and  she  was  beau- 
tiful as  a  picture.  I  couKl  not  wonder  at  their  delight. 
Lowell's  talk  after  their  departure  was  of  literature,  of 
course.  He  has  been  rcatling  Calderon  for  the  last  six 
months,  in  the  original.  He  finds  him  inexhaustible 
almost.  Speaking  of  novels,  he  said  Fielding  was  the 
master,  although  he  considers  there  are  but  two  perfect 
creations  of  individual  character  in  all  literature;  these 
are  FalstafT  and  Don  Quixote;  all  the  rest  fell  infinitely 
below  —  are  imperfect  and  unworthy  to  stand  by  their 
side.  Tom  Jones  he  thought  might  come  in,  in  the 
second  rank,  with  many  others,  but  far  below.  He  said 
he  could  not  tell  his  boys  at  Cambridge  to  read  Tom 
Jones,  for  it  might  do  them  harm;  but  Fielding  painted 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE 


III 


his  own  experience  and  the  result  was  unrivalled. 
Thackeray  and  the  rest  were  pleasant  reading,  very 
pleasant,  and  yet  how  could  he  tell  his  class  that  he  read 
Tom  Jones  once  a  year !  ^  He  scouted  the  idea  of  Pick- 
wick or  anybody  else  approaching  his  two  great  char- 
acters. They  stood  alone  for  all  time.  Rip  Van  Winkle 
was  suggested,  but  he  said  in  the  first  place  that  was  not 
original.  Few  persons  knew  the  story  perhaps  in  the  old 
Latin  (he  gave  the  name,  but  unhappily  I  have  for- 
gotten it)  but  it  was  only  a  remade  dish  after  all. 

Friday.  ■ —  Bayard  Taylor  and  his  wife  left  for  New 
York.  Mr.  Parton  dined  out  and  we  had  a  quiet  eve- 
ning at  home  and  went  to  bed  early.  (Parton  thinks  it 
would  be  possible  to  make  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  far 
more  popular.  He  suggests  a  writer  named  Mark  Twain 
be  engaged,  and  more  articles  connected  with  life  than 
with  literature.) 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  Lowell's  talk  must  have 
sounded  much  like  his  letters,  which  so  often  sound  like 
talk.  Witness  the  following  sentences  from  a  letter  of 
December  21, 1868,  in  reply,  apparently,  to  an  appeal  for 
a  new  essay  for  the  "Atlantic"  :  — 

^  One  of  Lowell's  reminiscences  at  the  Saturday  Club,  recorded  two  years 
earlier  by  Mrs.  Fields,  suggests  his  essential  youthfulness  of  spirit.  Apropos 
of  a  story  told  by  Dr.  Holmes,  "Lowell  said  that  reminded  him  of  experi- 
ments the  boys  at  his  school  used  to  make  on  flies,  to  see  how  much  weight 
they  could  carry.  One  day  he  attached  a  thread,  which  he  pulled  out  of  his 
silk  handkerchief,  to  a  fly's  leg,  and  to  the  other  end  a  bit  of  paper  with  'the 
master  is  a  fool'  written  on  it  in  small  distinct  letters.  The  fly  flew  away  and 
lighted  on  the  master's  nose ;  but  he,  regardless  of  all  but  the  lessons,  brushed 
him  off,  and  the  fly  rose  with  his  burden  to  the  ceiling." 


112  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Well,  well,  T  am  always  astonished  at  the  good  nature 
of  folks,  and  how  much  boring  they  will  stand  from  au- 
thors. As  I  told  Howells  once,  the  day  will  come  when 
a  wiser  generation  will  drive  all  its  literary  men  into  a 
corner  and  make  a  battue  of  the  whole  lot.  However, 
"after  me,  the  deluge,"  as  Nero  said,  and  I  suppose 
they  '11  stand  another  essay  or  two  yet,  if  I  can  divine, 
or  rather  if  I  have  absorbed  enough  of  the  general  feel- 
ing about  something  to  put  a  point  on  it. 

It  *s  a  mercy  I  'm  not  conceited  !  I  should  like  to  be, 
and  try  to  be,  and  have  fizzes  of  it  now  and  then,  but 
they  soon  go  out  and  leave  a/o^o  behind  them  I  don't 
like.  But  if  I  only  were  for  a  continuance  I  should  be 
as  grand  a  bore  as  ever  lived  —  as  grand  as  Wordsworth, 
by  Jove !  I  would  come  into  town  once  a  week  to  read 
you  over  one  of  my  old  poems  (selecting  the  longest,  of 
course),  and  point  out  its  beauties  to  you.  You  would 
flee  to  Tierra  del  Fuego  (ominous  name  !)  to  escape  me. 
You  would  give  up  publishing.  You  would  write  an  epic 
and  read  a  book  just  to  77ie  every  time  I  came.  But  no,  it 
is  too  bright  a  dream.  Let  me  [be]  satisfied  with  my  class, 
who  have  to  hear  me  once  a  week,  and  with  just  enough 
conceit  to  read  my  lectures  as  if  I  had  not  stolen  *em, 
as  I  am  apt  to  do  now.  Look  out  for  an  essay  that  shall 
Imake]  Montaigne  and  Bacon  cross  as  the  devil  — 
when  they  come  to  read  it !  It  will  come  ere  you  think. 
Yours  ever, 

Fabius  C.  Lowell 

A  few  weeks  later  Lowell  was  writing  arjain  to  Fields, 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  113 

on  January  12,  1869,  about  a  fiftieth  birthday  party  at 
Elmwood :  — 

I  am  going  to  celebrate  my  golden  wedding  with  Life, 
on  the  22nd  of  next  month,  by  a  dinner  or  a  supper  or 
something  of  the  kind,  and  I  want  you  to  jine.  I  shall 
get  together  a  dozen  or  so  of  old  friends,  and  it  will  be  a 
great  satisfaction  for  you  and  me  to  see  how  much  grayer 
the  rest  of  'em  are  than  we.  I  shall  fit  my  invitations  to 
this  end,  and  the  bald  and  hoary  will  have  the  chance 
of  the  lame,  the  halt,  and  the  blind  in  the  parable.  If 
it  should  be  a  dinner,  it  won't  matter,  but  if  a  supper,  be 
sure  and  forget  your  night-key  and  then  you  won't  have 
any  anxiety,  nor  Mrs.  Fields  either.  Of  course,  I  shall 
have  an  account  of  the  affair  in  the  papers  with  a  list  of 
the  gifts  (especially  in  money)  and  the  names  of  all  who 
donate.  You  will  understand  by  what  I  have  said  that  it 
is  to  be  one  of  those  delightful  things  they  call  a  "sur- 
prise party,"  and  I  expect  to  live  on  it  for  a  year  —  one 
friend  for  every  month. 

A  week  later,  in  the  course  of  a  letter  accepting  the 
invitation  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fields  for  Lowell's  daughter 
to  accompany  them  to  Europe,  he  wrote:  "Do  you  see 
that is  to  commence  his  autobiography  in  'Put- 
nam's Magazine '  ?  At  least,  I  take  it  for  granted  from 
the  title  —  The  Ass  in  Life  and  Literature  ?  If  sincerely 
done,  it  will  be  interesting." 

For  all  the  transcendentalism  of  the  circle  to  which 
Mrs.  Fields  bore  so  intimate  a  relation,  there  emanated 


114  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

from  Lowell  and  others  an  atmosphere  of  sincerity  which 
helped  to  preserve  the  equilibrium  of  the  more  easily 
swayed.  Mrs.  Fields  herself  was  not  immune  to  the 
appeal  of  some  of  the  "isms"  of  the  time  and  place,  but 
an  entry  in  her  journal  for  January  i8,  1870,  shows  her 
in  no  great  peril  of  being  swept  away  by  them  :  — 

Attended  yesterday  a  meeting  of  what  is  called  the 
Radical  Club.  Mr.  Channing  spoke,  Mr.  Higginson, 
Wendell  Phillips,  Mrs.  Howe,  Mrs.  Lucy  Stone,  Mr. 
Bartol,  Wasson,  J.  F.  Clarke,  Edna  Cheney.  Mr.  Whit- 
tier  was  present  and  a  room  full  of  "come-outers."  Mr. 
Channing  and  Mr.  Phillips  were  reverent,  though  I 
think  Mr.  Phillips  more  definite,  and  perhaps  conse- 
quently more  conservative,  in  what  he  said.  Certainly 
Mr.  Phillips's  speech  was  highly  satisfactory.  On  the 
whole  there  was  much  vague  talk  and  restless  expression 
of  self  without  any  high  end  being  furthered.  I  thought 
much  of  Mr.  Higginson's  talk  and  Mr.  Wasson's  irrev- 
erent answer  were  untrue.  Perhaps  I  am  wrong  in  say- 
ing no  good  end  is  attained  by  such  a  meeting.  Perhaps 
a  closer  understanding  of  what  we  do  believe  is  the  re- 
sult. But  there  is  much  unpleasant  in  the  unnatural  and 
excited  view  of  the  inside  ring.' 

There  was,  moreover,  a  constant  corrective  at  hand 
in  the  persons  of  the  local  wits,  among  whom  Long- 

*  After  an  evening  of  high  discussion  at  Mrs.  Howe's  in  an  cirlicr  year, 
Mrs.  F'iclds  wrote  in  her  journal  (October  4,  1863) :  "The  talk  grew  deep, 
and  after  it  was  over,  she  (Mrs.  Howe]  recalled  the  saying  of  Mrs.  Bell, 
after  a  like  evening,  when  she  called  for  'a  fat  idiot.'" 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  115 

fellow's  brother-in-law,  Thomas  Gold  ("Tom")  Apple- 
ton,  was  of  the  most  clear-sighted.  His  definition  of 
Nahant  as  "cold  roast  Boston,"  and  his  prescription 
for  tempering  the  gales  on  a  particularly  windy  Boston 
corner  by  tethering  a  shorn  lamb  there,  have  secured 
him  something  more  than  a  local  survival.  He  fre- 
quently left  his  mark  on  the  pages  of  Mrs.  Fields's 
diary  —  once  venturing  seriously  into  prophecy  on 
the  spiritual  future  of  Boston,  in  terms  which  will  seem, 
at  least,  in  partibus  infidelium,  to  have  received  a  cer- 
tain confirmation  at  the  hands  of  time.  In  the  diary 
the  following  entry  is  found :  — 

Sunday^  November  6,  1870.  —  Appleton  (Tom,  as  the 
world  calls  him)  came  in  soon  after  breakfast  Sunday 
morning.  He  talked  very  wisely  and  brilliantly  upon 
Art,  its  value  and  purpose  to  the  state,  the  necessity 
for  the  Museum.  He  said  our  people  were  far  more  lit- 
erary than  artistic.  The  sensuous  side  of  their  nature 
was  undeveloped.  The  richness  of  color,  the  glory  of 
form,  was  less  to  them  than  something  which  could  set 
the  sharp  edge  of  their  intellect  in  motion.  "Besides, 
what  is  Boston  going  to  do,"  he  said,  "when  these  fel- 
lows die  who  give  it  its  honor  now,  Longfellow,  Holmes, 
and  the  rest  ?  They  can't  live  forever,  and  with  them 
its  glory  will  depart  without  it  is  sustained  by  a  founda- 
tion for  art  in  other  directions.  Harvard  University  will 
do  something  to  keep  it  up,  but  not  much,  and  unless  a 
distinct  effort  be  made  now,  Boston  will  lose  its  place 
and  go  behind."  He  became  much  excited  by  the  lack 


ii6  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

of  appreciation  for  William  Story  in  Boston,  and  the 
abuse  of  the  Everett  statue,  which  he  considers  good 
in  its  way  and  as  marking  the  highest  point  in  Everett's 
oratorical  fame,  that  is,  when  he  lifted  his  hand  to 
indicate  the  stars  in  his  address  at  Albany,  and  set  his 
fame  some  points  nearer  the  luminaries  which  inspired 
him,  by  his  fine  eloquence. 

He  said  a  merchant  told  him  one  day  that  he  did  n't 
like  Story's  portrait  statues,  but  his  ideal  work  he  was 
delighted  with.  "You  lie  !"  I  said  to  him.  "The  beauti- 
ful Shepherd-Boy  which  I  helped  to  buy  and  bring  to 
Boston  you  know  nothing  of — you  can't  tell  me  now 
in  which  corner  of  the  Public  Library  it  is  hidden  away. 
I  tell  you,  you  lie!" 

He  spoke  of  the  Saturday  Club,  and  said  that,  al- 
though he  s(imetimes  smiled  at  Holmes's  enthusiasm 
over  it,  he  believed  in  the  main  he  was  quite  right,  and 
it  would  be  remembered  in  future  as  Johnson's  Club  has 
been,  and  recorded  and  talked  of  in  the  same  way. 

Unfortunately  I  don't  see  their  Boswell.  I  wish  I  could 
believe  there  was  a  single  chicl  amang  them  takin'  notes.' 

On  December  I4,  1870,  the  diary  recorded  a  dinner 
at  which  Longfellow,  Osgood,  Aldrich,  Holmes,  Dana, 
Howells,  Lowell,  and  Bayard  Taylor  were  the  guests. 
It  celebrated  the  completion  of  Taylor's  translation  of 
"  Faust."  Of  the  talk  of  Lowell  and  Longfellow,  Mrs. 
Fields  wrote :  — 

'  If  Mrs.  Fields  had  lived  to  sec  The  Early  Yean  of  the  Saturday  Cluh 
(Boston,  KyiS),  she  would  have  found  that  I  drew  from  the  notes  in  her  own 
diary  a  large  portion  of  the  memoir  of  James  T.  Fields  which  it  contains. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  117 

Before  dinner  I  found  opportunity  for  a  short  talk 
with  Lowell  upon  literature.  He  thinks  the  chief  value 
of  Bret  Harte  is  his  local  color  and  it  would  be  a  fatal 
mistake  for  him  to  come  East,  in  spite  of  Taylor's  rep- 
resentation of  the  aridity  of  intellectual  life  now  in 
California.  Taylor  finds  the  same  reason  for  leaving  his 
native  place.  He  regrets  his  large  house,  and  frankly 
says  he  is  tired  of  living  there,  tired  of  living  alone,  there 
being  really  no  one  in  the  vicinity  with  whom  he  can 
associate  as  on  equal  grounds.  There  is  no  culture,  not 
even  a  love  for  it,  in  the  neighborhood. 

But  I  have  not  said  half  enough  of  Longfellow.  He 
scintillated  all  the  evening,  was  filled  with  the  spirit  of 
the  time  and  the  scene,  sweetly  reprimanded  Taylor 
for  not  having  time  to  give  him  a  visit  also,  darted  his 
jcux  d' esprit  rapidly  right  and  left,  often  setting  the 
table  in  a  roar,  a  most  unusual  thing  with  him.  Holmes 
at  the  other  end  was  talking  about  the  natural  philos- 
ophers who  "invented  facts."  Lowell  took  exception, 
said  it  was  an  impossible  juxtaposition  of  ideas  and 
words.  Holmes  defended  himself  by  quoting  (I  think 
the  name  was  Carius ;  whoever  it  was,  Lowell  said  at 
once  and  rather  warningly,  he  is  a  very  distinguished 
name)  a  series  of  created  facts  by  which  he  said  a 
woman  was  not  articulated  or  not  as  a  man  is  (perhaps 
I  have  not  his  exact  ideas) ;  whereat  Longfellow  at  once 
held  up  the  inarticulate  woman  to  the  amusement  of 
the  table.  Then  they  began  to  talk  of  the  singular  per- 
sons this  world  contains,  "quite  as  strange  as  Dickens," 
as  they  always  say;  and  Taylor,  who  introduced  the 


ii8  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

subject,  proceeded  to  relate  an  incident  which  happened 
to  him  in  a  cheap  coffee  house  in  New  York.  It  was 
near  a  railway  station,  so  he  dropped  in,  finding  it  con- 
venient so  to  do,  at  an  hour  not  usually  popular  with 
the  frequenters  of  such  establishments.  It  was  empty 
save  for  an  extraordinary  figure  with  long  arms,  short 
legs  and  misshapen  body,  who,  hearing  a  glass  of  ale 
ordered,  came  forward  and  said  if  he  pleased  he  would 
like  to  have  his  ale  at  the  same  table  for  the  sake  of 
company.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  comply, 
which  Taylor  of  course  did,  whereupon  the  strange 
creature,  never  asking  who  Taylor  was,  went  on  to 
relate  that  he  was  the  great  man-monkey  of  the  world 
who  could  hang  from  a  tree  and  eat  nuts  and  make  the 
true  noise  in  the  throat  better  than  any  other;  he  had 
no  competitor  except  one  of  the  Ravel  brothers,  but 
he  (Ravel)  was  not  the  real  thing;  he  himself  alone 
could  make  the  noise  perfectly.  .  .  . 

They  all  drank  the  exquisite  Ehrbacher  Rhine  wine 
from  tall  green  German  glasses  of  antique  form,  which 
delighted  them  greatly.  Jamie  was  much  entertained  by 
Holmes's  finding  them  "good  conversational  aperient, 
but  ugly.  I  should  always  have  them  on  the  table,  but 
they  are  not  handsome."  I^ngfellow  was  delighted  with 
my  Venetian  lace  bodice;  it  seemed  to  have  a  flavor  of 
Venice  about  it  in  his  eyes.  It  was  a  real  pleasure  to 
me  to  see  his  appreciation  of  a  thing  Jamie  and  I  really 
enjoy  so  much. 

I  have  not  reported  all,  by  any  means,  but  time  fails 
me  now.  A  thought  of  Dickens  was  continually  present. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  119 

as  it  must  be  forever  at  a  company  dinner-table.  How- 
many  beautiful  feasts  have  I  enjoyed  by  his  side ! 
There  is  none  like  him,  none. 

Taylor  wrote  a  friendly  German  inscription  in  his 
book  and  presented  me  after  dinner. 

There  were  amusing  traits  of  Elizabeth  Peabody 
given.  Longfellow  remembered  that  the  first  time  he 
met  her  was  in  a  carriage.  She  was  taken  up  in  the 
dark.  Hearing  his  name  mentioned,  she  leaned  forward 
and  said,  "Mr.  Longfellow,  can  you  tell  me  which  is 
the  best  Chinese  Grammar  ? " 

A  midsummer  entry  of  the  same  year  suggests  the 
part  that  an  editor's  wife  may  play  in  the  successful 
conduct  of  a  magazine,  if  only  through  sharing  the  en- 
thusiasm that  attends  the  first  reading  of  a  manuscript 
of  distinguished  merit. 

Saturday,  July  16,  1870.  —  A  perfect  summer  day. 
Jamie  did  not  go  to  town,  but  with  a  bag  full  of  letters 
and  MSS.  concluded  to  remain  here.  He  fell  first  upon 
a  MS.  by  Henry  James,  Jr.,  a  short  story  called  "Com- 
pagnons  de  Voyage,"  and  after  tasting  of  it  in  our  room 
and  finding  the  quality  good  (though  the  handwriting 
was  execrable),  I  invited  my  dear  boy  to  a  favorite 
nook  in  the  pasture  where  we  could  hear  the  sea  and 
catch  a  distant  gleam  of  its  blue  face  while  we  were  still 
in  shadow  and  fanned  by  oak  leaves.  It  was  one  of 
those  delicious  seasons  which  summer  can  bring  to  the 
dullest  heart,  I  believe  and  hope.    We  lay  down  with 


I20  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

our  feet  plunged  into  the  cool  delicious  grass,  while  I 
read  the  pleasant  tale  of  Italy  to  the  close.  I  do  not 
know  why  success  in  work  should  affect  us  so  power- 
fully, but  I  could  have  wept  as  I  finished  reading,  not 
from  the  sweet  low  pathos  of  the  tale,  which  was  not 
tearful,  but  from  the  knowledge  of  the  writer's  success. 
It  is  so  difficult  to  do  anything  well  in  this  mysterious 
world. 

On  the  very  next  day  Lowell  wrote  Fields  a  letter 
which  must  have  been  read  with  delight  by  such  friends 
of  Dickens  as  the  Fieldses.  The  decorated  sonnet  which 
filled  its  third  sheet  is  reproduced  herewith  in  facsimile: 
the  plainness  of  Lowell's  script  renders  type  superflu- 
ous. The  mere  fact  that  the  death  of  Dickens  could 
have  called  forth  clerical  expressions  provoking  Lowell 
to  such  scorn  is  in  itself  a  measure  of  the  distance  we 
have  travelled  since  1870.  The  verses  are  not  included 
in  Lowell's  "Poetical  Works,"  nor  are  they  listed  in  the 
"Hibliography  of  James  Russell  Lowell,"  compiled  by 
George  Willis  Cooke.  With  two  slight  changes  they 
may  be  found,  however,  over  Lowell's  signature,  in 
"Every  Saturday,"  for  August  6,  1870. 

Ei-Mwoon,  17M  July,  iS-jo 

My  dear  Fields  :  — 

I  can  stand  it  no  longer  !  If  Dickens  is  to  be  banned, 
the  rest  of  us  might  as  well  fling  up  our  hands.  This 
hot  weather,  too,  gives  a  foretaste  that  raises  well- 
founded  apprehension.    It  is  a  good  primary  school  for 


ll/n    ^^  fc^  ^^^^  (f  ^^^  ^  flc^  a^  K^  ^ 


i 


P 


Facsimile  of  Lowell's  " Bulldog  and  Terrier"  sonnet 


122  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

the  Institution  of  which  the  Rev'ds  Fulton  and  Dunn 
seem  to  be  ushers.  Instead  of  going  to  Church  today, 
where  I  might  have  heard  something  not  wholly  to  my 
advantage,  as  the  advertisements  for  lost  people  say, 
I  have  written  a  sermon.  It  is  not  a  proper  sonnet,  but 
a  cross  between  that  and  epigram  —  a  kind  of  bull-ter- 
rier, in  short,  with  the  size  of  the  one  and  the  prick-ears 
and  docked  tail  of  the  other,  nor  without  his  special  tal- 
ent for  rats.  Is  there  any  grip  in  his  jaw  or  no  ?  He  is 
good-natured  and  scarce  shows  his  teeth. 

The  thing  is  an  improvisation  and  the  weather  aw- 
fully hot ! 

Sweltered  your  servant  sits  and  sweats  and  swears  : 
(for  alliteration  only)  but  if  you  would  like  it  for  the 
"Atlantic,"  why  here  it  is  on  the  next  leaf.  Or,  if  too 
late,  why  not  "Every  Saturday"?  I  could  not  even 
think  of  it  sooner,  for  I  have  been  wrestling  with  a  bad 
head  and  an  article  on  Chaucer,  and  I  fear  they  have 
thrown  me.  I  want  rest,  and  a  bath  of  poetry,  but  where 
may  the  wicked  hope  for  either?  My  sonnet  (if  Leigh 
Hunt  would  let  me  call  it  so)  hit  me  like  a  stray  shot 
from  ncnvhere  that  I  could  divine,  and  five  minutes  saw 
it  finished.  So  why  may  it  not  be  good  ?  It  came,  any- 
how, as  a  poem  comes —  though  it  is  n't  just  that.  But 
my  dog  is  n't  bad  ?   He  is  from  the  life  at  any  rate. 

I  shall  make  use  of  my  first  leisure  to  get  into  Boston. 
Hut  I  have  got  bedevilled  with  the  text  of  Chaucer  and 
am  working  on  it  with  my  usual  phrenzy  —  thirteen 
hours,  for  example,  yesterday,  collating  texts  and  writ- 
ing into  margins,    I  comfort  myself  that  my  Chaucer 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  123 

will  bring  a  handsome  price  at  my  vmidoo  !  I  shall  be 
easier  in  my  coffin  if  it  run  up  handsomely  for  Fanny 
and  Mabel. 

Do  you  want  an  essay  for  your  "Almanac"  if  one 
should  come,  which  is  doubtful  ?  I  need  one  or  two 
more  to  make  a  little  volume,  and  I  need  a  little  volume 
for  nameless  reasons.  O,  if  I  could  sell  my  land  I  I 
would  transmute  that  gold  into  poetry.  Or  if  only 
poems  would  come  when  you  whistle  for  'em ! 

Give  my  kindest  regards  to  Mrs  Fields. 
Yours  always, 

J.  R.  L. 

From  my  study,  this  first  day  for  three  weeks  without 
a  drowsy  pain  in  my  knowledge  box,  I  really  feel  a  little 
lively,  and  wonder  at  myself.  But  don't  be  alarmed  — 
it  won't  last,  any  more  than  money  does,  or  principle 
in  a  poHtician,  or  hair,  or  popular  favor  —  or  paper. 

Lowell  and  Longfellow  continue  to  make  their  appear- 
ances in  Mrs.  Fields's  diary. 

December  7,  1871.  —  Last  Sunday  Charlotte  Cush- 
man  dined  here.  Our  guests  asked  to  meet  her  were 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lowell  and  Mr.  Longfellow;  Miss  Steb- 
bins  and  Miss  Chapman,  her  guests,  also  came.  We 
had  a  lovely  social  time,  Lowell  making  himself  espe- 
cially interesting,  as  he  always  does  when  he  can  once 
work  himself  up  to  the  pitch  of  going  out  at  all.  He 
talked  a  while  with  me  about  poetry  and  his  own  topics 
after  dinner.    He  said  he  was  one  of  the  few  people  who 


124  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

believed  in  absolute  truth;  that  he  always  looked  for 
certain  qualities  in  writers,  which  if  he  could  not  dis- 
cover, they  no  longer  interested  him  and  he  did  not 
care  to  read  them.  He  discovered,  for  instance,  in  the 
writers  who  had  survived  the  centuries  the  same  kin- 
dred points,  those  points  he  studied  until  he  discovered 
what  the  adamant  was  and  where  it  was  founded;  then 
he  would  look  into  the  writers  of  our  own  age  to  see  if 
he  could  find  the  same  stuff;  there  was  little  enough 
of  it  unfortunately.  He  does  not  like  Reynolds's  por- 
trait of  Johnson,  thought  it  untrue,  far  too  handsome, 
yet  highly  characteristic  in  the  management  of  the 
hands,  which  portray  the  man  as  he  was  when  talking 
better  probably  than  anything  ever  did.  Mrs.  Lowell 
appeared  to  enjoy  herself.  J.  says  L.  is  always  more 
himself  if  Mrs.  L.  is  happy  and  talkative.  They  are 
thinking  of  Europe.  Mabel  is  to  be  married  in  April, 
and  afterward  they  probably  go  at  once  to  Europe. 

A  small  party  of  friends  assembled  in  the  evening. 
Longfellow  was  the  beloved  and  observed  and  wor- 
shlppctl  among  all. 

ylpril  1 1,  1872.  —  Last  night  Jamie  dined  with  Long- 
fellow. John  Field  of  Pennsylvania  and  Lowell  were  the 
two  other  guests.  J.  was  there  twenty  minutes  before 
the  rest  arrived,  and  Longfellow  gave  him  an  account  of 

the  wedding  of  a  school-mate  of  mine, ,  an 

excellent  generous-hearted,  generously  built  woman, 
with  a  little  limping  old  clergyman  who  has  already  had 

three  wives  and  whose  first  name  is .    Longfellow 

said,  in  memory  of  what  had  gone  before,  the  organist. 


HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW 
From  a  photograph  taken  in  middle  life 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  125 

as  if  driven  by  some  evil  spirit,  played  "Auld  Lang 
Syne,"  as  the  wedding  procession  came  in,  consisting  of 
the  bride  and  her  brother,  two  very  well-made  large 
persons  and  the  elderly  bridegroom  limping  on  behind 
all  alone.  The  organist  suddenly  stopped  at  this  point, 
breaking  off  with  a  queer  little  quirk  and  shiver  as  if 
he  only  then  discovered  what  he  was  doing.  Indeed 
the  whole  wedding  appeared  to  have  points  to  affect 
the  risibles  of  the  poet.  He  could  hardly  speak  of  it 
without  laughter.  He  said,  moreover,  that  it  was,  he 
thought,  disgusting  and  outrageous  for  old  men  to  get 
married. 

Tuesday,  September  23,  1872.  —  Longfellow  came  to 
town  to  see  Jamie,  in  one  of  his  loveliest  moods.  The 
day  was  so  warm  and  fine,  such  a  day  of  dreams,  that  he 
proposed  to  him  every  kind  of  excursion.  "Come,"  he 
said,  "let  us  go  to  the  tea  stores  and  smell  the  tea;  the 
warm  atmosphere  will  bring  out  all  the  odors  and  we  can 
get  samples!"  And  again,  "Come,  let  us  go  to  the 
wharves  and  see  the  vessels  just  in  from  Italy  or  Spain. 
It  will  be  a  lovely  sight  in  this  soft  sky,  and  we  can  hear 
the  men  speak  in  their  native  tongues."  Unhappily  all 
these  seductions  were  in  vain,  for  Jamie  was  busy  and 
was  to  lecture  in  Grantville  in  the  evening.  L.  said : 
"At  half-past  eight  I  shall  think  of  you  doing  thus  and 
thus"  (sawing  the  air  with  his  arms).  L.  continued: 
"You  know  I  have  very  strange  people  come  to  me  —  a 
man  came  a  day  or  two  ago  by  the  name  of  Hyers,  who 
has  just  published  a  book  describing  his  own  career. 
He  believes  that  he  is  fed  by  the  Lord !    *How  do  you 


126  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

mean?'  asked  I,  with  the  knowledge  that  we  "were  all 
fed  in  the  same  way.  'Why,'  said  H.,  'He  leaves  pies 
and  peanuts  on  the  sidewalks  for  w^. '"  Longfellow  could 
hardly  contain  himself — but  "after  all,"  he  said,  "that 
is  very  like  Greene :  when  Greene  comes  to  me,  he  always 
takes  his  money  to  come  and  go,  just  like  my  own  sons 
and  without  so  much  as  a  thank  you.  But  I  like  to  have 
Greene  come  because  he  enjoys  it  so  much  and  it  is  so 
strange.  He  amuses  me.  Then  Appleton  too,  with  his 
odd  fancies,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  stranger  man  than 
he.  He  amused  me  immensely  the  other  day  by  fancy- 
ing an  Indian,  'Great  Fire,'  or  'Hole  in  the  Wall,'  or 
some  such  fellow,  coming  to  Boston  for  the  first  time. 
Passing  a  perruquier's,  he  sees  the  window  filled  with 
masses  of  false  hair;  taking  them  to  be  scalps  and  the 
window  to  be  an  exhibition  of  these  tokens  of  prowess, 
he  rushes  in,  embraces  the  little  pcrruquier  behind  the 
counter,  treats  him  like  a  brother,  and  almost  frightens 
the  small  hairdresser  out  of  his  senses  ! !" 

L.  likes  Joaquin  [Miller]  much.  Of  course,  he  said, 
there  are  some  things  about  him  not  altogether  agree- 
able, such  as  flinging  a  quid  of  tobacco  out  of  his  mouth 
under  the  table;  "but  I  don't  mind  those  things;  per- 
haps," he  added,  "perhaps  I  might  have  done  the  same 
as  a  youth  of  20! ! !" 

Thursday y  June  i  2,  1873.  —  Dined  last  night  with  the 
Aldriches  and  Mr.  Bugbce  at  Mr.  Lowell's  beautiful  old 
Elm  wood. ^    It  was  a  perfect  night,  cool,  fresh,  moon- 

'  This  was  in  the  midst  of  Aldrich's  occupancy  of  PMmwood,  (Juring  Lowell's 
two  years'  absence  in  Europe. 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  127 

lighted,  after  a  muggy  day  of  heat.  After  dinner  I  went 
into  the  fine  old  study  with  Aldrich,  where  he  showed  me 
two  or  three  Httle  poems  he  has  lately  written.  He  was 
all  ready  to  talk  on  literary  topics  and  much  in  earnest 
about  his  own  satisfaction  over  "Miss  Mehitable's  Son" 
(which  is  indeed  a  very  good  story),  and  was  full  of  dis- 
gust over  the  "  Nation's  "  cool  dismissal  of  it.  It  was  too 
bad;  but  that  Dennet  of  the  "Nation"  is  beneath  con- 
tempt because  of  the  slights  he  throws  upon  good  liter- 
ary work.  Aldrich  says  he  found  "Asphodel"  all  worn 
to  pieces,  read  and  reread  in  the  upstairs  study.  He 
finds  Mr.  Lowell's  library  in  curious  disorder  with  re- 
spect to  modern  books.  He  is  an  easy  lender  and  an 
easy  borrower.  The  result  is,  everything  is  at  loose  ends. 
Only  two  volumes  of  Hawthorne  can  be  found,  for  in- 
stance. .  .  . 

Such  wonderful  colors  overspread  our  bay  this  eve- 
ning, the  wide  heavens,  and  all  that  lay  between.  It 
seemed  an  unreal  and  magic  glory,  and  I  recall  dimly 
Hawthorne's  disgust  when  he  endeavored  to  describe 
a  landscape.  The  Lord,  he  says,  expressed  himself  in 
this  glory;  how  shall  we  therefore  interpret  into  lan- 
guage when  he  himself  has  taken  this  form  of  speech  as 
the  only  adequate  expression  to  convey  his  meaning  to 
us  ?  Who  does  not  feel  this  in  looking  at  the  glories  of 
Nature  in  this  perfect  season  ? 

And  here  is  a  final  glimpse  of  Longfellow,  at  Man- 
chester-by-the-Sea,  shortly  after  Don  Pedro  of  Brazil 
had  visited  him  in  Cambridge:  — 


128  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Thursday y  July  6,  1876.  —  A  fine  rushing  wind  —  no 
rain,  but  a  wind  that  seemed  to  tear  everything  up  by 
the  roots.  I  dared  not  venture  out  in  the  morning.  To 
our  surprise  and  delight  Mr.  Longfellow  came  to  dine. 
He  was  pleased  to  find  Anna  here,  and  fell  to  talking  of 
Heidelberg  in  German  with  her  and  quoting  the  poets 
most  delightfully.  We  sat  in  the  front  hall  and  rejoiced 
over  his  presence  as  he  talked,  for  he  was  in  a  fine  talk- 
ing mood.  He  told  us  of  the  Emperor's  visit  and  of  his 
soldierly  though  most  simple  bearing ;  how  he  came  to 
call  upon  him  after  his  dinner,  and  when,  as  he  rose  to 
go,  Longfellow  said,  "Your  Majesty,  I  thank  you  for 
the  honor  you  have  done  me."  He  said,  "Ah  !  no,  Long- 
fellow, none  of  your  nonsense,  let  us  be  friends  together. 
I  hope  you  will  write  to  me.  I  will  write  you  first  and 
you  must  promise  to  answer."  As  they  walked  down  the 
garden  path  together,  Longfellow  raised  his  hat  and 
stepped  one  side  as  he  was  about  to  get  into  his  car- 
riage. "No,  no,"  he  said  laughingly,  "there  you  are 
at  it  again."  In  short,  he  has  left  a  pleasant  memory 
behind. 

Longfellow  told  us  his  maids  broke  everything  he 
possessed;  at  last  they  had  broken  a  very  beautiful 
Japanese  vase  or  bowl  which  Charley  brought  home  — 
so  he  had  made  a  Latin  epitaph  for  the  maid.  Unhap- 
pily I  recall  only  the  last  line :  — 

Nihil  letigit  quod  non  Jre^it. 

He  described  Blumenbach  very  amusingly,  whose 
lectures  on  Natural  History  he  attended  as  a  youth  in 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  129 

Heidelberg.  He  descended  from  his  desk  one  day  and 
came  and  rested  his  hand  on  the  rail  just  before  which  L. 
was  seated.  He  had  been  speaking  of  Platonic  love. 
"Und  die  Platonische  Liebe  ist  nach  Amerika  gegan- 
gen,"  he  said,  looking  at  Longfellow.  The  whole  stu- 
dent audience  roared  and  applauded. 

He  was  in  the  loveliest  spirits  and  manners.  His 
friendly  ways  to  my  three  friendless  girls  were  not  only 
such  as  to  excite  them  profoundly,  but  there  was  sin- 
cere feeling  in  his  invitation  to  them  to  call  upon  him 
and  in  his  questions  in  their  behalf. 

The  wind  subsided  as  we  sat  together ;  the  two  young 
Bigelows  sang  "Maid  of  Athens"  and  one  or  two  other 
songs,  and  then  he  departed.  How  sorry  we  were  as  we 
watched  his  retreating  figure,  as  he  and  dear  J.  wound 
down  the  hill  in  the  little  phaeton. 

Mrs.  Fields's  gallery  of  friends  would  be  incomplete 
without  a  single  sketch  of  Whit  tier's  familiar  outline. 
Out  of  many  which  the  diaries  contain,  one  may  best 
be  taken,  for  it  shows  him  in  company  with  that  other 
friend,  Celia  Thaxter,  whom  also  Mrs.  Fields  counted 
among  the  few  to  whose  memory  she  devoted  special 
chapters  in  her  "Authors  and  Friends";  and  it  brings 
the  three  together  at  Mrs.  Thaxter's  native  Isles  of 
Shoals,  so  long  a  mecca  of  the  "like-minded." 

July  12,  1873.  —  I  shall  not  soon  forget  our  talk  one 
afternoon  in  the  parlor  at  "The  Shoals."  Whittier,  as  if 
inspired  by  that  spirit  residing  in  us  which  is  the  very 


ijo  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

ground-work  of  the  Quaker  belief,  began  to  speak  of 
Emerson's  faith  and  of  the  pain  it  gave  him  to  see  the 
name  of  Jesus  placed  in  his  writings  as  but  one  among 
many.  When  he  discoursed  with  Emerson  of  these 
things,  he  could  have  no  satisfaction.  Celia,  on  the  other 

From  a  note  oj  "Dear  If'httticr  "  to  Mrs.  I'icUs 

hand,  said  she  did  not  understand  these  things ;  she 
never  prayed.  "I  am  sure  thee  does  without  knowing 
it,"  said  W. ;  "else  what  do  thy  poems  mean  ?  Thee  has 
not  set  prayer  perhaps,  but  some  kind  of  a  prayer  thee 
must  have.  No  human  being  can  exist  without  it.  But 
what  troubles  me  also  in  Emerson  is  that  I  can  find  no 
real  faith  in  immortality."  Here  I  took  up  the  question. 
I  had  heard  Mr.  Emerson  at  Thoreau's  grave,  after- 
ward speaking  expressly  on  immortality,  and  in  both 
discourses  I  felt  deeply  his  faith  in  our  future  progress 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  131 

and  enduring  life.  Whittier  was  inclined  to  think  me 
mistaken.  I  think  too  that  his  use  of  Jesus'  name  is  to 
prevent  the  worship  of  him  instead  of  the  One  God. 
Whittier  asked  Celia  to  read  a  discourse  of  Emerson's, 
which  she  did  aloud ;  and  again  he  spoke  of  the  beauty 
of  childlike  worship,  the  necessity  for  it  in  our  natures, 
and  quoted  some  lovely  hymns.  His  whole  heart  was 
alive  and  poured  out  toward  us  as  if  he  longed  tenderly 
like  the  prophet  of  old  to  breathe  a  new  life  into  us.  I 
could  seem  to  see  that  he  reproached  himself  that  so 
many  days  had  passed  without  his  trying  to  speak  more 
seri6usly.  He  was  not  perfectly  well  after  this  —  a 
headache  overtook  him  before  our  talk  was  over  and 
did  not  leave  him  until  he  found  himself  in  Amesbury 
again.    I  trust  it  did  so  there.  .  .  . 

Whittier  said  one  day,  when  we  were  talking  of  the 
"Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte"  by  Mrs.  Gaskell,  and  I  was 
saying  how  sad  it  was  she  should  have  made  the  old  man, 
her  father,  suffer  unto  death,  as  she  did,  by  telling  the 
tale  of  his  bad  son's  life,  and  "still  worse,"  I  said,  "she 
came  out  in  the  Athenaeum  and  declared  that  her  story 
was  false,  when  she  knew  it  was  true,  hoping  to  comfort 
the  old  man,"  —  "I  don't  know,"  said  Whittier;  "I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  was  the  best  part  of  it,  if  her 
lie  would  have  done  the  old  man  any  good !" 

After  we  had  our  long  afternoon  session  of  talk  over 
Emerson  and  future  existence  and  the  unknowable, 
Celia  stood  up  and  stretched  herself  and  said,  "How 
good  it  has  been  with  the  little  song-sparrow  putting  in 
his  oar  above  it  all!" 


132  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

And  what  of  Mrs.  Fields  herself,  a  woman  of  nearly 
forty  when  this  last  passage  was  written  ?  For  the  most 
part  the  diary  reveals  her  but  indirectly.  Yet  in  the 
midst  of  all  her  pictures  of  her  friends,  a  fragment  of 
self-portraiture  is  occasionally  found;  and  to  one  of 
them  the  reader  of  these  pages  is  entitled. 


cc<n-£^ 


■i^nf^^^ 


^- 


-o 


Proposed  Dedication  of  H'hitlier's  " .imoiig  ihe  Hills"  to  Afrs.  Fields. 

In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Fields,  IVhittier  wrote:  "  I  would  like  ihy  judgment 

about  it.    It  'ould  this  do?'*    In  altered  form  it  appears  in  the  book. 


December  i8,  1873.  —  Have  been  looking  over  "VVil- 
hclm  Mcister"!  I  struck  upon  that  marvellous  pas- 
sage, "  I  reverence  the  individual  who  understands  dis- 
tinctly what  he  wishes ;  who  un weariedly  advances ;  who 
knows  the  means  conducive  to  his  object,  and  can  seize 
and  use  them.  How  far  his  object  may  be  great  or 
little  is  the  next  consideration  with  me";   and  much 


CONCORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE  133 

more  quite  as  good  to  the  same  end.  It  prompts  me 
to  say  what  I  wish  to  do  in  life. 

Aristotle  writes  :  "Virtue  is  concerned  with  action,  art 
with  production."  The  problem  of  life  is  how  to  harmon- 
ize the  two — either  career  must  he.come prominent  accord- 
ing to  the  nature  of  the  individual.  I  discern  in  myself: 
1st,  the  desire  to  serve  others  unselfishly  according  to  the 
example  of  our  dear  Lord ;  2nd,  the  desire  to  cultivate 
my  powers  in  order  to  achieve  the  highest  life  possible 
to  me  as  an  individual  existence  by  stimulating  thought 
to  its  finest  issues  through  reflection,  observation,  and  by 
profound  and  ceaseless  study  of  the  written  thoughts  of 
the  wisest  in  every  age  and  every  clime. 

To  fulfil  these  aims  we  must  be  able  to  answer  the 
simple  question  promptly  to  ourselves:  "What  then 
shall  I  do  tomorrow  and  today?"  Then,  the  decision 
being  made,  the  thing  alone  must  have  all  the  earnest- 
ness put  into  it  of  a  creature  who  knows  that  the  next 
moment  he  may  be  called  to  his  account. 

As  a  woman  and  a  wife' my  first  duty  lies  at  home; 
to  make  that  beautiful ;  to  stimulate  the  lives  of  others 
by  exchange  of  ideas,  and  the  repose  pf  domestic  life ; 
to  educate  children  and  servants. 

2nd,  To  be  conversant  with  the  very  poor;  to  visit 
their  homes ;  to  be  keenly  alive  to  their  sufferings ; 
never  allowing  the  thought  of  their  necessities  to  sleep 
in  our  hearts. 

3rd,  By  day  and  night,  morning  and  evening.  In 
all  times  and  seasons  when  strength  is  left  to  us,  to 
study,  study,  study. 


134  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Because  I  have  put  this  last,  it  does  not  stand  last 
in  Importance;  but  to  put  it  first  and  write  out  the  plan 
for  study  which  my  mind  naturally  selects  would  be  to 
ignore  that  example  of  perfect  life  in  which  I  humbly 
believe,  and  to  return  to  the  lives  of  the  ancients,  so  fine 
in  their  results  to  the  few,  so  costly  to  the  many.  But 
in  the  removed  periods  of  existence,  when  solitude  may 
be  our  blessed  portion,  what  a  joy  to  fly  to  communion 
with  the  sages  and  live  and  love  with  them ! 

I  have  written  this  out  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
if  "I  distinctly  understand  what  I  wish."  It  is  a  wide 
plan,  too  wide,  I  fear,  for  much  performance,  but  there- 
fore pcrhap«;  m(jrc  conducive  to  a  constant  faith. 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA' 

When  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  the  "Personal  Recollec- 
tions" of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  which  appear  in  her 
"Authors  and  Friends,"  she  quoted,  with  a  few  changes 
prompted  by  modesty,  this  passage  from  a  letter  re- 
ceived from  him  at  Christmas,  1881 :  "Except  a  few  of 
my  immediate  family  connections,  no  friends  have  seen 
me  so  often  as  a  guest  as  did  you  and  your  husband. 
Under  your  roof  I  have  met  more  visitors  to  be  remem- 
bered than  under  any  other.  But  for  your  hospitality 
I  should  never  have  had  the  privilege  of  personal  ac- 
quaintance with  famous  writers  and  artists  whom  I 
can  now  recall  as  I  saw  them,  talked  with  them,  heard 
them  in  that  pleasant  library,  that  most  lively  and 
agreeable  dining-room.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  with 
such  guests  as  he  entertained  with  his  own  unflagging 
vivacity  and  his  admirable  social  gifts  ?" 

One  of  the  visitors  thus  encountered  by  Dr.  Holmes 
was  Charles  Dickens.  Here  was  a  guest  after  the  host's 
own  heart  —  and  the  hostess's.  The  host  stood  alone 
among  publishers  as  a  friend  of  the  authors  with  whom 
it  was  his  business  to  deal.  Out  of  them  all  there  was 
none  with  whom  he  came  to  stand  on  terms  of  closer 
sympathy  and  friendship  than  with  Dickens.  They  had 

^  The  greater  part  of  this  chapter  appeared  in  Harper's  Magazine  for  May 
and  June,  1922. 


1 16  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 


first  met  when  Dickens  came  to  America  in  1842,  and 
Fields  was  by  no  means  the  conspicuous  figure  he  was 
to  become.  When  he  visited  Europe  in  1859-60,  with 
his  young  wife,  whose  personality  was  to  contribute  its 
own  beauty  and  charm  to  the  hospitality  of  I48  Charles 
Street  for  many  years  to  come,  they  dined  with  Dickens 
in  London,  visited  him  at  Gad's  Hill,  and  had  much  dis- 
cussion of  a  plan,  which  Fields  had  been  urging  upon 
him  in  correspondence,  for  Dickens  to  come  to  America 
for  a  course  of  readings.  As  early  as  in  one  of  the  letters 
of  this  time,  Dickens  wrote  to  Fields:  "Here  I  forever 
renounce  'Mr.'  as  having  anything  whatever  to  do  with 
our  communication,  and  as  being  a  mere  preposterous 
interloper."  From  such  beginnings  grew  the  intimacy 
which  caused  Dickens,  when  he  drew  up  the  humorous 
terms  of  a  walking-match  between  Dolby,  his  manager, 
and  Osgood,  Fields's  partner,  while  the  Boston  readings 
of  1868  were  in  progress,  to  define  Fields  as  "Massa- 
chusetts Jemmy"  and  himself  as  the  "Gad's  Hill 
Gasper"  by  virtue  of  his  "surprising  performances 
(without  the  least  variation)  on  that  true  national  in- 
strument, the  American  catarrh." 

The  visits  of  Dickens  to  America,  first  in  1842,  then 
in  the  winter  of  1867-68,  have  been  the  subject  of  abun- 
dant chronicle.  For  the  first  of  them  thtre  is  the  direct 
record  of  his  "American  Notes,"  besides  those  indirect 
reflections  in  "Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  which  wrought  an 
efl^ect  described  by  Carlylc  in  the  characteristic  saying 
that  "all  Yankee-doodledom  blazed  up  like  one  uni- 
versal soda  bottle."    Many  memorials  of  the  second 


CHARLES  DICKENS 


From  a  portrait  by  Francis  Alexander,  for  many  years  in  the  Fields  house, 
the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  137 

visit  are  preserved  in  Fields's  "Yesterdays  with 
Authors,"  and  in  John  Forster's  "Life"  both  visits  are 
of  course  recorded. 

There  is,  besides,  one  source  of  intimate  record  of 
Dickens  in  America  which  hitherto  has  remained  almost 
untouched.^  This  is  found  in  the  diaries  of  Mrs.  Fields, 
filled,  as  the  preceding  pages  have  shown,  not  merely 
with  her  own  sympathetic  observations,  but  with  many 
things  reported  to  her  by  her  husband.  To  him  it  was 
largely  due  that  Dickens  crossed  the  Atlantic  near  the 
end  of  1867.  Landing  in  Boston,  and  soon  beginning 
his  extraordinarily  popular  readings,  he  found  in  the 
Charles  Street  house  of  the  Fieldses  a  second  home. 
"Steadily  refusing  all  invitations  to  go  out  during  the 
weeks  he  was  reading,"  wrote  Fields  in  his  "Yesterdays 
with  Authors,"  "  he  went  only  into  one  other  house  be- 
sides the  Parker,  habitually,  during  his  stay  in  Boston." 
In  that  house  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  the  diaries  from  which 
the  following  passages  are  taken.  There  Dickens  was 
not  merely  a  warmly  welcomed  friend  and  guest  at 
dinner,  but  for  a  time  an  inmate.  Henry  James,  sum- 
moning after  Mrs.  Fields's  death  his  remembrances  of 
her  and  of  her  abode,  found  in  it  "certain  fine  vibra- 
tions and  dying  echoes"  of  all  the  episode  of  Dickens's 
second  visit.  "I  liked  to  think  of  the  house,"  he  wrote, 
"I  couldn't  do  without  thinking  of  it,  as  the  great 
man's  safest  harborage    through  the  tremendous  gale 

*  A  few  passages  from  it,  relating  to  Dickens,  are  included  in  James  T. 
Fields:  Biographical  Notes  and  Personal  Sketches.  When  they  are  occa- 
sionally repeated  here,  it  is  in  their  original  form,  and  not  as  Mrs.  Fields 
edited  them  for  publication. 


138  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

of  those  even  more  leave-taking  appearances,  as  fate 
was  to  appoint,  than  we  then  understood." 

In  Dickens's  state  of  physical  health  while  the 
Fieldses  were  thus  seeing  him,  lay  the  only  token  of  an 
end  not  far  off.  All  else  was  gayety  and  delight.  The 
uncontrollable  laughter — where  does  one  hear  quite 
parallel  notes  to-day? — -  the  simplicities  of  game  and 
anecdote,  the  enthusiastic  yielding  of  complete  admira- 
tion, the  glimpses  of  august  figures  of  an  earlier  time 
—  all  these  serve  equally  to  take  one  back  over  more 
than  half  a  century,  into  a  state  of  society  about  which 
an  element  of  myth  begins  to  form,  and  to  bring  out  of 
tliut  past  the  living,  human  figure  of  Dickens  himself. 

For  the  most  part  these  extracts  from  the  diaries 
call  for  no  explanations. 

Several  months  before  the  great  visitor's  arrival  his 
coming  was  heralded  by  his  business  agent,  of  whom 
Mrs.  Fields  wrote  :  — 

August  I4,  1867.  —  Mr.  Dolby  arrived  today  from 
England  (Mr.  Dickens's  agent),  a  good,  healthy,  kindly 
natured  man  of  whom  Dickens  seems  really  fond,  hav- 
ing followed  him  to  the  steamer  in  Liverpool  from  Lon- 
don to  see  that  all  things  were  comfortably  arranged 
for  him.  He  says  Dickens  has  lamed  one  of  his  feet 
with  too  much  walking  of  late.  He  is  here  to  arrange  for 
100  nights,  for  which  he  hears  he  may  receive  ^200,000; 
the  readings  to  begin  the  first  of  December  and  to  be 
chiefly  given  in  New  York  City. 

August  15,   1867. — Our  day  was  quiet  enough,  but 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  139 

when  J.  came  down,  he  held  us  quite  spellbound  and 
magnetized  all  the  evening  with  his  account  of  Dickens, 
which  Mr.  Dolby  had  given  him.  He  says  Dolby  him- 
self is  a  queer  creature  when  he  talks.  He  has  a  stutter 
which  leads  him  to  become  suddenly  stately  in  the 
middle  of  a  homely  phrase  and  to  give  a  queer  intona- 
tion to  his  voice,  so  that  he  did  not  dare  look  at  Osgood 
(who  was  a  listener  also)  lest  they  should  both  explode 
with  laughter. 

Dickens  now  has  five  dogs ;  for  these  the  cook  pre- 
pares daily  five  plates  of  dinner.  One  day  the  plates 
were  all  ready  when  a  small  pup  stole  in  and  polished 
off  the  five  plates.  He  fainted  away  immediately,  and  in 
this  condition  was  discovered  by  the  cook,  who  put 
him  under  the  pump  and  revived  him ;  but  he  had  been 
going  about  looking  like  the  figure  8  ever  since. 

Dickens  is  a  warm  friend  of  Fechter.  One  day,  return- 
ing from  a  reading  tour,  his  man  met  him  at  the  sta- 
tion saying,  "The  fifty-eight  boxes  have  come,  sir." 
"What?"  said  Mr.  Dickens.  "The  fifty-eight  boxes 
have  come,  sir."  "I  know  nothing  of  fifty-eight  boxes," 
said  the  other.  "Well,  sir,"  said  the  man,  "they  are 
all  piled  up  outside  the  gate  and  we  shall  soon  see,  sir." 
They  proved  to  be  a  Swiss  chalet  complete,  handles, 
blinds,  not  a  bit  wanting,  which  Fechter  had  sent  him. 
It  is  put  up  in  a  grove  near  the  house,  where  it  presents 
a  very  picturesque  effect. 

Dickens  allows  nothing  to  escape  his  attention  and 
gives  "one  small  corner  of  the  white  of  one  eye"  to 
his  household  concerns,  though  he  seems  not  to  observe. 


I40  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

His  daughter  Mary  has  the  governance  of  the  servants, 
Miss  Hogarth  of  the  cellar  and  provisions.  There  is  a 
system  in  everything  with  which  he  has  to  do.  When 
he  gives  a  reading,  he  is  present  in  the  hall  at  half-past 
six,  although  the  reading  does  not  begin  until  eight ;  for 
Dickens  cannot  go  about  as  other  people  do,  he  must  go 
when  the  people  do  not  press  upon  him.  On  reaching 
the  private  room,  his  servant  brings  his  evening  dress, 
reading  desk,  screen,  lamps,  when  he  arranges  the  hall, 
examines  the  copper  gas-tubes  to  see  if  in  order,  dresses 
himself  and  is  ready  to  begin.  In  Liverpool  the  other 
night  he  had  advertised  to  read  "Sergeant  Buzfuz," 
instead  of  which  by  accident  he  read  "Bleak  House." 
Mr.  Dolby  spoke  to  him  as  soon  as  he  had  finished, 
telling  him  the  mistake  he  had  made.  He  at  once  re- 
turned to  the  desk,  and  said,  "My  friends,  it  is  half- 
past  ten  o'clock  and  you  see  how  tired  I  am,  but  I  will 
still  read  Sergeant  Buzfuz's  speech  if  you  expect  it." 
"No,  no,"  the  crowd  shouted;  "you  're  tired.  No,  no, 
this  ought  to  do  for  tonight."  One  tall  man  raised  himself 
up  in  the  gallery  and  said,  "Look  here,  we  came  to  hear 
Pickwick  and  we  ought  tohef  it."  "Very  well,  my  friend," 
replied  Dickens,  immediately,  "I  will  read  Sergeant 
Buzfuz  for  your  accommodation  solely"  ;  and  thereat  he 
did  read  it  to  a  breathless  and  delighted  audience. 

At  length  came  Dickens  himself,  am.!  the  diary  takes 
up  the  tale  ;  — 

November   i8,    1867.  —  Today    the   steamer  is   tele- 


■THE    rAO    CHARLES'S"    (CHARLES    DICKENS    AND    CHARLES     FECHTER). 
Fram  a  HumargMi  Drawing  by  .\L7BSd  Bbvan.    1879 


DICKENS  AND  FECHTER 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  141 

graphed  with  Dickens  on  board,  and  the  tickets  for  his 
readings  have  been  sold.  Such  a  rush !  A  long  queue 
of  people  have  been  standing  all  day  in  the  street  —  a 
good-humored  crowd,  but  a  weary  one.^  The  weather  is 
clear  but  really  cold,  with  winter's  pinch  in  it. 

November  19. —  ...  Yesterday  I  adorned  Mr. 
Dickens's  room  with  flowers,  which  seemed  to  please 
him.  He  was  in  the  best  of  good  spirits  with  every- 
thing. 

Thursday^  November  21.  —  Mr.  Dickens  dined  here. 
Agassiz,  Emerson,  Judge  Hoar,  Professor  Holmes,  Nor- 
ton, Greene,  dear  Longfellow,  last  not  least,  came  to 
welcome.  Dickens  sat  on  my  right,  Agassiz  at  my  left. 
I  never  saw  Agassiz  so  full  of  fun.  .  .  . 

Dickens  bubbled  over  with  fun,  and  I  could  not  help 
fancying  that  Holmes  bored  him  a  little  by  talking  at 
him.  I  was  sorry  for  this,  because  Holmes  is  so  simple 
and  lovely,  but  Dickens  is  sensitive,  very.  He  is  fond 
of  Carlyle,  seems  to  love  nobody  better,  and  gave  the 
most  irresistible  imitation  of  him.  His  queer  turns  of 
expression  often  convulsed  us  with  laughter,  and  yet 
it  is  difiicult  to  catch  them,  as  when,  in  speaking  ot 
the  writer  of  books,  always  putting  himself,  his  real 
self,  in,  "which  is  always  the  case,"  he  said;  *'but 
you  must  be  careful  of  not  taking  him  for  his  next-door 
neighbor." 

^  On  this  very  day  Lowell  wrote  in  the  course  of  a  letter  to  Fields :  "James 
tells  me  you  had  a  tremendous  queue  this  morning.  Don't  fail  to  get  me 
tickets,  and  for  the  first  night.  I  should  like  to  see  his  reception.  It  will 
leave  a  picture  on  the  brain.  And  why  should  I  not  be  there  to  welcome  him, 
as  well  as  Tom,  Dick,  or  Harry  ?" 


14:1  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

He  spoke  of  the  fineness  of  his  Parisian  audience  — 
"the  most  delicately  appreciative  of  all  audiences." 
He  also  gave  a  most  ludicrous  account  of  a  seasick 
curate  trying  to  read  the  service  on  board  ship  last 
Sunday.  He  tells  us  Browning  is  really  about  to  marry 
Miss  Ingelow,  and  of  Carlyle,  that  he  is  deeply  sad- 
dened, irretrievably,  by  the  death  of  his  wife.  Just  as 
we  were  in  a  tempest  of  laughter  over  some  witticism 
of  his,  he  jumped  up,  seized  me  by  the  hand,  and  said 
good-night.  He  neither  smoked  nor  drank.  "I  never 
do  either  from  the  time  my  readings  'set  in,'"  he  said, 
as  if  it  were  a  rainy  season.  .  .  . 

Among  other  interesting  personal  facts  Dickens  told 
us  that  he  had  last  year  burned  all  his  private  letters. 
An  appeal  from  the  daughter  of  Sydney  Smith  for  some 
of  his  letters  set  him  thinking  on  the  subject,  and  one 
day  when  there  was  a  big  fire  —  [sentence  unfinished]. 

Mr.  Dickens  left  the  table  just  as  we  were  in  a  tem- 
pest of  laughter.  Dr.  Holmes.  .  .  was  telling  how  inap- 
preciative  he  had  found  some  country  audiences  —  one 
he  remembered  in  especial  when  his  landlady  accom- 
panied him  to  the  lecture  and  her  face,  he  observed,  was 
the  only  one  which  rchixctl  its  grimness !  "Probably 
because  she  saw  money  enough  in  the  house  to  cover 
your  expenses,"  rejoined  Dickens.  That  was  enough; 
the  laughter  was  prodigious.  .  .  . 

Jfednesday,  November  27.  —  What  a  pity  that  these 
days  have  flown  while  I  have  been  unable  to  make  any 
record  of  them.  J.  has  been  to  walk  each  day  with 
Dickens,  and  has  come  home  full  of  wonderful  things  he 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  143 

has  said.^  His  variety  is  so  inexhaustible  that  one  can 
only  listen  in  wonder. 

Thursday,  :l^,  —  Thanksgiving  Day.  J.  took  Dick- 
ens to  see  the  Aldriches'  house.  He  was  very  much 
amused  by  what  he  saw  there  and  has  written  out  a  full 
account  to  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Collins.  .  .  . 

I  have  made  no  record  of  our  supper  party  of  Wed- 
nesday evening.  We  had  Alfred  to  wait,  and  a  pretty 
supper  and  more  important  by  far  (tho'  the  first  a  con- 
sequent of  the  last)  a  pretty  company.  There  were  Mr. 
Dickens  and  Mr,  Dolby,  Helen  Bell  and  Mrs.  Silsbee, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bigelow,  Mr.  Hillard  and  Louisa  and  Mr. 
Beal.  Mrs.  Bell  sang  a  little  before  supper  ("Douglas" 
for  one)  very  gracefully  with  real  feeling.  At  nine  o'clock 
oysters  and  fun  began ;  finally  Mr.  Dickens  told  several 
ghost  stories,  but  none  of  them  more  interesting  than 
a  little  bit  of  clairvoyance  or  what-you-will,  which  he 
let  drop  concerning  himself.  He  said  a  story  was  sent  to 
him  for  "All  the  Year  Round,"  which  he  liked  and  ac- 
cepted ;  just  after  the  matter  had  been  put  in  type,  he 
received  a  letter  from  another  person  altogether  from 
the  one  who  had  forwarded  it  in  the  first  place,  saying 
that  he  and  not  the  first  man  was  the  author,  and  in 
proof  of  his  position  he  supplied  a  date  which  was  want- 
ing in  the  first  paper.  Curiously  enough,  Mr.  Dickens, 
seeing  the  story  hinged  upon  a  date  and  the  date  being 

^  Even  after  Dickens's  return  to  England,  his  sayings  found  their  way  into 
Mrs.  Fields's  journal ;  as,  for  example  :  — 

"July  4,  1868.  —  J.  made  me  laugh  this  morning  (it  was  far  too  hot  to 
laugh)  by  telling  me  that  Dickens  said  of  Gray,  the  poet,  'No  man  ever 
walked  down  to  posterity  with  so  small  a  book  under  his  arm  !'" 


i44  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

but  a  blank  in  the  MS.,  had  supphed  one,  as  it  were  by- 
chance,  and,  behold !  /'/  was  the  same  date  which  the  new 
man  had  sent. 

Sunday.  —  Dined  with  Mr.  Dickens  at  six  o'clock. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bigelow,  Mr.  Dolby  and  ourselves  were 
the  only  guests. 

After  dinner  we  played  two  or  three  games  which  I 
will  set  down  lest  they  should  be  forgotten. 

Descriptions  of  "Buzz,"  "Russian  Scandal,"  and 
another  wholly  innocent  amusement  may  be  omitted. 

Monday  night,  December  2,  1867.  —  The  first  great 
reading!  How  we  listened  till  we  seemed  turned  into 
one  eyeball !  How  we  all  loved  him  !  How  we  longed  to 
tell  him  all  kinds  of  confidences  !  How  Jamie  and  he  did 
hug  in  the  anteroom  afterward  !  What  a  teacher  he 
seemed  to  us  of  humanity  as  he  read  out  his  own  words 
which  have  enchanted  us  from  childhood  !  And  what  a 
house  it  was !  Longfellow,  Dana,  Norton  (Mrs.  Dana, 
Jr.,  and  the  three  little  Andrews  went  with  us),  and  a 
world  of  lovely  faces  and  ardent  admirers. 

Tuesday  came  Miss  Dodge  and  Mrs.  Hawthorne, 
Julian,  and  Rose.  The  reading  was  quite  as  remarkable, 
tho'  more  quiet  than  that  of  the  night  before.  As  usual, 
we  went  to  speak  to  him  at  his  request  after  it  was  over. 
Found  him  in  the  best  of  spirits,  but  very  tired.  "You 
can't  think,"  he  said,  "what  resolution  it  requires  to 
dress  again  after  it  is  over!" 

Monday,   December  9.  —  Left    home    at    8    a.m.    for 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  145 

New  York.  The  day  was  clear  and  cold,  the  journey 
somewhat  long,  but  on  the  whole  extremely  agreeable. 
We  only  had  each  other  to  plague  or  amuse,  as  the  case 
might  be,  and  we  had  the  new  Christmas  story  of  Dick- 
ens and  Wilkie  Collins  (called  "No  Thoroughfare")  to 
read,  and  so  by  sufficient  attention  to  the  peculiarities 
or  follies  or  troubles  of  our  neighbors  and  some  forget- 
fulness  of  our  own,  we  came  to  the  Westminster  Hotel 
at  night,  in  capital  spirits  but  rather  frozen  physically. 
We  had  scant  time  to  dress  and  dine  and  to  go  to  the 
Dickens  reading.  We  accomplished  it,  nevertheless. 
Saw  the  rapturous  enthusiasm,  heard  the  "Carol"  far 
better  read  than  in  Boston,  because  the  applause  was 
more  ready  and  he  felt  stimulated  by  it.  Afterward  Mr. 
D.  sent  for  us  to  come  to  his  room.  He  was  fatigued,  of 
course,  but  we  sat  at  table  with  him  and  after  a  while  he 
began  to  feel  warmer  as  vigor  returned.  He  brought  out 
his  jewels  for  us  to  see  —  a  pearl  Count  D'Orsay  once 
wore,  set  with  diamonds,  etc.  —  laughed  and  talked 
about  the  way  we  dress  and  other  bits  of  nonsense  sug- 
gested by  the  time,  all  turned  towards  the  fine  light  of 
Charles  Dickens's  lovely  soul  and  returning  with  a  fresh 
gleam  of  beauty.  We  left  early  lest  we  should  overfatigue 
him. 

Wednesday^  December  11.  —  At  four  Dickens  came  to 
dinner  in  our  room  with  Eythinge  and  Anthony,  his 
American  designer  and  engraver.  Afterward  we  went 
to  the  "Black  Crook"  together,  and  then  home  to  the 
hotel,  where  we  sat  talking  until  one  o'clock.  There  is 
nothing  I  should  like  so  much  to  do  as  to  set  down  every 


146  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

word  he  said  in  that  time,  but  much  must  go  down  to 
oblivion.  .  .  . 

He  talked  of  actors  and  acting  —  said  if  a  man's 
Hamlet  was  a  sustained  conception,  it  was  not  to  be 
quarrelled  with ;  the  only  question  was,  what  a  man  of 
melancholy  temperament  would  do  under  such  circum- 
stances. Talked  of  Charles  Reade  and  the  greatness  of 
"Griffith  Gaunt,"  and  the  pity  of  it  that  he  did  not 
stand  on  his  own  bottom  instead  of  getting  in  with  Dion 
Boucicault,  etc.,  etc.  But  after  dinner  he  unbent,  and 
while  we  were  in  the  box  at  the  theatre  showed  how  true 
his  sympathies  were  with  the  actors,  was  especially  care- 
ful to  make  no  sound  which  could  hurt  their  feelings  by 
apparent  want  of  attention.  The  play  was  very  dull,  so 
we  sat  and  talked.  He  told  me  that  no  ballet  dancer 
could  have  pretty  feet,  and  one  dreadful  thing  was  they 
could  never  wash  them,  as  water  renders  the  feet  ten- 
der and  they  must  bccf)mc  horny.  He  asked  about 
Longfellow's  sorrow  again  and  expressed  the  deepest 
sympathy,  but  said  he  was  like  a  man  purified  by  suffer- 
ing. 

We  had  punch  in  our  room  after  the  play,  when  he 
laughed  till  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks  over  Bob 
Sawyer's  party  and  the  remembrance  of  the  laughter  he 
had  seen  depicted  on  the  faces  of  people  the  night  be- 
fore. Jack  Hopkins  was  such  a  favorite  with  J.  that  D. 
made  up  the  face  again  and  went  over  the  necklace  story 
until  we  roared  aloud.  At  length  he  began  to  talk  of 
Fechter  and  to  describe  the  sensitive  character  of  the 
man.  He  saw  him  first  quite  by  accident  in  Paris,  hav- 


^6 


/i4,^- 


-^ 


^^a-i«^^y-»,^  C-.-?C. 


Reduced  facsimile  of  Dickens's  directions,  preserved  among  the 
Fields  papers,  for  the  brewing  of  pleasant  beverages 


148  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

ing  strolled  into  a  little  theatre  there  one  night.  He  was 
making  love  to  a  woman,  and  so  elevated  her  as  well  as 
himself  by  the  sentiment  in  which  he  enveloped  her  that 
they  trod  into  purer  ether  and  in  another  sphere  quite 
lifted  out  of  the  present.  " '  By  heavens  ! '  I  said, '  a  man 
who  can  do  this  can  do  anything!'  I  never  saw  two 
people  more  purely  and  instantly  elevated  by  the  power 
of  love.  The  manner  in  which  he  presses  the  hem  of  the 
dress  of  Lucy  in  the  'Bride  of  Lammermoor'  is  some- 
thing surpassing  speech  and  simply  wonderful.  The  man 
has  a  thread  of  genius  in  him  which  is  unmistakable,  yet 
I  should  not  call  him  a  man  of  genius  exactly,  either." 
Mr.  Dickens  described  him  as  a  man  full  of  plans  for 
plays,  one  who  had  lost  much  money  as  a  manager,  too. 
He  was  apt  to  come  down  to  Gad's  Hill  with  his  head 
full  of  plans  about  a  play  which  he  wished  Mr.  Dickens 
to  write  out  and  which  Fcchtcr  would  act  in  the  writing- 
room,  using  Mr.  Dickens's  small  pillow  for  a  baby  in  a 
manner  to  make  the  latter  feel,  if  Fechter  were  but  a 
writer,  how  marvellous  his  powers  of  representation 
would  be.  "  I,  who  for  so  many  years  have  been  study- 
ing the  best  way  of  putting  things,  felt  utterly  amazed 
and  distanced  by  this  man." 

Before  the  end  of  our  talk  Mr.  Dickens  became  pene- 
trated by  the  memory  of  his  friend  and  brought  him 
before  us  in  all  the  warmth  of  ardent  sympathy. 
Fechter  is  sure  to  come  to  this  country:  we  are  sure  to 
have  the  happiness  of  knowing  him  (if  we  all  live),  and 
in  that  event  I  shall  consider  last  night  as  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  friendship. 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  149 

Sunday y  December  22.  —  Another  week  has  gone. 
We  are  again  at  home  in  our  dear  Httle  nook  by  the 
Charles,  and  tonight  the  lover  of  Christmas  comes  to 
have  dinner  with  us.  We  had  a  merry  time  last  Sunday, 
and  after  we  had  separated  the  hotel  must  needs  take 
fire  —  to  be  sure,  I  had  been  packing  and  was  in  my 
first  sleep  and  knew  nothing  distinctly  of  it ;  but  it  was 
an  escape  all  the  same  and  Mr.  Dickens  rushed  out  to 
help,  as  he  always  seems  to  do.  .  .  . 

At  night  came  Mr.  Dickens  and  Mr.  Dolby,  Mr. 
Lowell  and  Mabel,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dorr,  to  dinner.  It 
was  really  a  beautiful  Christmas  festival,  as  we  intended 
it  should  be  for  the  love  of  this  new  apostle  of  Christmas. 
Mr.  Dickens  talked  all  the  time,  as  he  always  will  do, 
generously,  when  the  moment  comes  that  he  sees  it  is 
expected,  of  Sir  Sam.  Baker,  of  Froude,  of  Fechter  again, 
this  time  as  if  he  did  not  know  the  man,  but  spoke  crit- 
ically as  if  he  were  a  stranger,  seeing  Lowell's  face  when 
his  name  was  mentioned,  which  inclined  itself  sneeringly. 

We  played  games  at  table  afterward,  which  turned 
out  so  queerly  that  we  had  storms  of  laughter. 

What  a  shame  it  is  to  write  down  anything  respecting 
one's  contact  with  Charles  Dickens  and  have  it  so  slight 
as  my  accounts  are ;  but  the  subtle  turns  of  conversa- 
tion are  so  difficult  to  render  —  the  way  in  which  he 
represents  the  woman  who  will  not  on  any  account  be 
induced  to  look  at  him  while  he  is  reading,  and  at  whom 
he  looks  steadily,  endeavoring  to  compel  the  eyes  to 
move  —  all  these  queer  turns  are  too  delicate  to  be  set 
down.    I  thought  I  should  have  had  a  convulsion  of 


ISO  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

laughter  when  Mrs.  Dorr  said  Miss  Laura  Howe  sat 
down  in  her  (Mrs.  D.'s)  room  and  wrote  out  a  charade 
in  such  an  unparalleled  and  brilliant  manner  that  no- 
body could  have  outshone  her  —  not  even  the  present 
company.  "In  the  same  given  time,  I  trust  ?"  said  Dick- 
ens.   "No,  no,"  said  the  lady,  persistently. 

December  31.  — The  year  goes  out  clear  and  cold. 
The  moon  was  marvellously  bright  last  night,  and  every 
time  I  woke  there  she  was  with  her  attendant  star  look- 
ing freshly  in  upon  us  sleeping  mortals  in  her  eternal, 
unwearied  way.  We  received  a  letter  from  Charles 
Dickens  yesterday,  saying  he  was  coming  to  stay  with 
us  when  he  returns.  What  a  pleasure  this  will  be  to  us! 
We  anticipate  his  coming  with  continual  delight!  To 
have  him  as  much  as  we  can,  at  morning,  noon,  and 
night. 

This  letter,  long  preserved  in  an  American  copy  of 
"A  Christmas  Carol"  on  the  shelves  of  the  Charles 
Street  library,  throws  a  light  of  its  own  on  the  physical 
handicaps  with  which  Dickens  was  struggling  thnnigh 
all  this  time. 

Westminster  Hotel,  New  York. 
Sunday^  Txisenty-Ninth  Deamber,  1867 

Mv  DEAR  Fields: — 

When  I  come  to  Boston  for  the  two  readings  of  the 
6th  and  7th  I  shall  be  alone,  as  Dolby  must  be  selling 
elsewhere.  If  you  and  Mrs.  Fields  should  have  no  other 
visitor,  I  shall  be  very  glad  indeed  on  this  occasion  to 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  151 

come  to  you.  It  is  very  likely  that  you  may  have  some 
one  with  you.  Of  course  you  will  tell  me  so  if  you  have, 
and  I  will  then  reembellish  the  Parker  House. 

Since  I  left  Boston  last,  I  have  been  so  miserable 
that  I  have  been  obliged  to  call  in  a  Dr.  —  Dr.  Fordyce 
Barker,  a  very  agreeable  fellow.  He  was  strongly  in- 
clined to  stop  the  Readings  altogether  for  some  few 
days,  but  I  pointed  out  to  him  how  we  stood  committed, 
and  how  I  must  go  on  if  it  could  be  done.  My  great  ter- 
ror was  yesterday's  Matinee,  but  it  went  off  splendidly. 
(A  very  heavy  cold  indeed,  an  irritated  condition  of  the 
uvula,  and  a  restlessly  low  state  of  the  nervous  system, 
were  your  friend's  maladies.  If  I  had  not  avoided  vis- 
iting, I  think  I  should  have  been  disabled  for  a  week 
or  so.) 

I  hear  from  London  that  the  general  question  in  so- 
ciety is,  what  will  be  blown  up  next  by  the  Fenians. 

With  love  to  Mrs.  Fields,  Believe  me. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

And  hers, 
Charles  Dickens 

Saturday  nighty  January  4.  —  All  in  readiness.  Mr. 
Dickens  arrived  punctually  with  Mr.  Osgood  at  half- 
past  nine.  Hot  supper  was  soon  in  order  and  we  put 
ourselves  at  it.  The  dear  "chief"  was  in  the  best  of 
good  humor  in  spite  of  a  cold  which  hangs  about  him 
and  stuffs  up  head  and  throat,  only  leaving  him  for  two 
hours  at  night  when  he  reads.  'T  is  something  to  be  in 
first-rate  mood  with  such  a  cold.  .  .  . 


T52  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

The  Readings  have  been  so  successful  in  New  York 
he  cannot  fail  to  be  pleased,  and  he  does  not  fail  to  show 
it.  Kate  Field,  New  Year's  Eve,  placed  a  basket  of 
flowers  on  his  table;  he  had  seen  her  bright  eyes  and 
sensitive  face,  he  said.  I  was  glad  for  Kate,  because  he 
wrote  her  a  little  note,  which  pleased  her,  of  course. 

Wednesday^  'January  8,  1 2  a.m.  —  I  take  up  the 
pen  again,  having  bade  our  guest  a  most  unwilling 
farewell.  Last  night  he  read  "  Copperfield "  and  the 
Trial  from  "Pickwick."  It  was  an  enormous  house, 
packed  in  every  extremity,  receipts  in  gold  about  five 
hundred  and  ten  pounds  ! !  He  was  pleased,  naturally, 
and  read  marvellously  well  even  for  him.  He  was  some- 
what excited  and  a  good  deal  tired  when  he  returned, 
and  in  spite  of  a  light  supper  and  stiff  glass  of  punch, 
which  usually  contains  soporific  qualities,  he  could  not 
sleep  until  near  morning.  He  has  been  in  the  best  of 
spirits  during  this  visit  —  when  he  came  downstairs 
last  night  to  take  a.  cup  of  coffee  before  leaving,  he 
turned  to  J.,  saying,  "The  hour  has  almost  come  when  I 
to  sulphurous  and  tormenting  gas  must  render  up  my- 
self!" He  has  been  afflicted  with  catarrh,  which  comes 
and  goes  and  distracts  him  with  a  buzzing  in  his  head. 
It  usually  leaves  him  for  the  two  reading  hours.  This 
is  convenient,  but  it  probably  returns  with  worse  force. 

Sunday  night  dinner  went  off  brilliantly.  Longfellow, 
Appleton,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thaxtcr  came  to  meet  "the 
chief"  and  ourselves.  Unfortunately  there  was  one 
empty  seat  which  Rowse,  the  artist,  had  promised  to 
fill,  but  was  ill  at  the  last  and  could  not  —  curiously 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  153 

enough  we  had  asked  Osgood,  Miss  Putnam,  and  Mr. 
Gay  besides,  all  kept  away  by  accident  when  they  would 
have  given  their  eyes  to  come.  In  the  course  of  the  day 
he  had  been  to  see  (with  O.  W.  H.)  the  ground  of  the 
Parkman  murder  which  has  lately  been  so  clearly  de- 
scribed by  Sir  Emerson  Tennent  in  "All  the  Year 
Round";  in  the  evening  the  talk  turned  naturally 
enough  that  way,  when,  after  much  surmise  with  regard 
to  the  previous  life  of  the  man,  Mr.  Longfellow  looked 
up  and  with  an  assured,  clear  tone,  said :  "Now  I  have 
a  story  to  tell !  A  year  or  two  before  this  event  took 
place  Dr.  Webster  invited  a  party  of  gentlemen  to  a 
dinner  at  this  house,  I  believe  to  meet  some  foreigner 
who  was  interested  in  science.  The  doctor  himself  was 
a  chemist,  and  after  dinner  he  had  a  large  bowl  placed 
in  the  centre  of  the  table  with  some  chemical  mixture  in 
it  which  he  set  on  fire  after  turning  the  lamp  low.  A 
lurid  light  came  from  the  bowl  which  caused  a  livid 
look  upon  the  faces  of  those  who  sat  round  the  table, 
and  while  all  were  observing  the  ghastly  effect.  Dr. 
Webster  rose  and,  pulling  a  bit  of  rope  from  somewhere 
about  his  person,  put  it  around  his  neck,  reached  his 
head  over  the  bowl  to  heighten  the  effect,  hung  it  on 
one  side,  and  lolled  his  tongue  out  to  give  the  appear- 
ance of  a  man  who  had  been  hanged !  !  !  The  whole 
scene  was  terrible  and  ghastly  in  the  extreme,  and, 
remembered  in  the  light  of  what  followed,  had  a  pre- 
science frightful  to  contemplate."  ^ 

^  See  Forster's  Life,  III,  368,  for  the  same  story  told  by  Dickens  in  a  letter 
to  Lord  Lytton,  without  naming  Longfellow  as  the  narrator. 


154  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Appleton  did  not  talk  as  much  as  usual,  and  we  were 
rather  glad;  but  Mrs.  Thaxter's  story  took  strong  hold 
on  Dickens's  fancy,  and  he  told  me  afterward  that 
when  he  awaked  in  the  night  he  thought  of  her.  I 
have  seldom  sat  at  dinner  with  a  gentleman  more  care- 
ful and  fine  in  his  choice  and  taste  of  food  and  drink 
than  C.  D.  The  idea  of  his  ever  passing  the  bounds  of 
temperance  is  an  absurdity  not  to  be  thought  of  for  a 
moment.  In  this  respect  he  is  quite  unlike  Mr.  Thack- 
eray, who  at  times  both  ate  and  drank  inordinately, 
and  without  doubt  shortened  his  life  by  his  careless- 
ness in  these  particulars.  John  Forster,  C.  D.'s  old 
friend,  is  quite  ill  with  gout  and  some  other  ails,  so 
C.  1).  writes  him  long  letters  full  of  his  experiences. 
Wc  breakfast  at  half-past  nine  punctually,  he  on  a 
rasher  of  bacon  and  an  egg  and  a  cup  of  tea,  always 
preferring  this  same  thing.  Afterward  we  talk  or  play 
with  the  sewing-machine  or  anything  else  new  and  odd 
to  him.  Then  he  sits  down  to  write  until  one  o'clock, 
when  he  likes  a  glass  of  wine  and  biscuit,  and  afterward 
goes  to  walk  until  nearly  four,  when  we  dine.  After 
dinner,  reading  days,  he  will  take  a  cup  of  strong  coffee, 
a  tiny  glass  of  brandy,  and  a  cigar,  and  likes  to  lie 
down  for  a  short  time  to  get  his  voice  in  order.  His  man 
then  takes  a  pt^rtmanteau  of  clothes  to  the  reading  hall, 
where  he  dresses  for  the  evening.  Upon  our  return  we 
always  have  supper  and  he  brews  a  marvellous  punch, 
which  usually  makes  us  all  sleep  like  tops  after  the 
excitement.  The  perfect  kindliness  and  sympathy  which 
radiates  from  the  man  is,  after  all,  the  secret  never  to 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  155 

be  told,  but  always  to  be  studied  and  to  thank  God  for. 
His  rapid  eyes,  which  nothing  can  escape,  eyes  which, 
when  he  first  appears  upon  the  stage,  seem  to  interro- 
gate the  lamps  and  all  things  above  and  below  (like 
exclamation  points,  Aldrich  says),  are  unlike  anything 
before  in  our  experience.  There  are  no  living  eyes  like 
them,  swift  and  kind,  possessing  none  of  the  bliss  of 
ignorance,  but  the  different  bliss  of  one  who  sees  what 
the  Lord  has  done  and  what,  or  something  of  what,  he 
intends.  Such  charity !  Poor  man !  He  must  have 
learned  great  need  for  that.  .  .  .  He  is  a  man  who  has 
suffered,  evidently.  Georgina  Hogarth  he  always 
speaks  of  in  the  most  affectionate  terms,  such  as  "she 
has  been  a  mother  to  my  children,"  "she  keeps  the  list 
of  the  wine  cellar,  and  every  few  days  examines  to  see 
what  we  are  now  in  want  of." 

I  hardly  know  anything  more  amusing  than  when  he 
begs  not  to  be  "set  a-going"  on  one  of  his  .readings  by  a 
quotation  or  otherwise,  and  [it  is]  odd  enough  to  hear 
him  go  on,  having  been  so  touched  off.  He  has  been  a 
great  student  of  Shakespeare,  which  appears  often  in 
his  talk.  His  love  of  the  theatre  is  something  which 
never  pales,  he  says,  and  the  people  who  go  upon  the 
stage,  however  poor  their  pay  or  hard  their  lot,  love  it, 
he  thinks,  too  well  ever  to  adopt  another  vocation  of 
their  free  will.  One  of  the  oddest  sights  a  green  room 
presents,  he  says,  is  when  they  are  collecting  children 
for  a  pantomime.  For  this  purpose  the  prompter  calls 
together  all  the  women  in  the  ballet  and  begins  giving 
out  their  names  in  order,  while  they  press  about  him. 


156  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

eager  for  the  chance  of  increasing  their  poor  pay  by  the 
extra  pittance  their  children  will  receive.  "Mrs.  John- 
son, how  many  ?"  "Two, sir."  "What  years  ?"  "Seven 
and  ten."  "Mrs.  B."  —  and  so  on  until  the  requisite 
number  is  made  up.  He  says,  where  one  member  of  a 
family  obtains  regular  employment  at  the  theatre,  others 
are  sure  to  come  in  after  a  time;  the  mother  will  be  in 
the  wardrobe,  children  in  pantomime,  elder  sisters  in 
the  ballet,  etc. 

When  we  asked  him  to  return  to  us,  he  said  he  must 
be  loyal  to  "the  show,"  and,  having  three  or  four  men 
with  him,  ought  to  be  at  an  hotel  where  he  could  attend 
properly  to  the  business.  He  never  forgets  the  needs  of 
those  who  are  dependent  upon  him,  is  liberal  to  his 
servants  (and  to  ours  also),  and  liberal  in  his  heart  to 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men. 

I  have  one  deeply  seated  hope,  that  he  will  read  for 
the  Freed  people  before  he  leaves  the  country;  and  I 
cannot  help  thinking  he  will.  .  .  . 

For  more  than  a  month  from  the  time  of  this  entry 
Dickens  was  carrying  the  triumph  of  his  readings  into 
other  cities  than  Boston.  There  he  had  left  a  faithful 
champion  in  the  person  of  Mrs.  Fields,  who  wrote  in 
her  diary  on  January  26,  1868  :  "It  is  odd  how  preju- 
diced people  have  allowed  themselves  to  become  about 
Dickens.  I  seldom  make  a  call  where  his  name  is  intro- 
duced that  I  do  not  feel  the  injustice  done  to  him  per- 
sonally, as  if  mankind  resented  the  fact  that  he  had 
excited  more  love  than  most  men."    As  his  return  to 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  157 

Boston  drew  near,  she  wrote,  February  i8th:  "We  are 
anticipating  and  doorkeeping  for  the  arrival  of  our 
friend.  Whatever  unpleasant  is  said  of  Charles  Dickens 
I  take  almost  as  if  said  against  myself.  It  is  so  hard  to 
help  this  when  you  love  a  friend."  On  February  21st 
there  is  the  entry:  "We  go  to  Providence  tonight  to 
hear  *Dr.  Marigold.'  I  have  been  full  of  plans  for  next 
week,  which  is  to  be  a  busy  season  with  us  of  company." 

Saturday^  February  22.  —  We  have  heard  **  Mari- 
gold" !  To  be  sure,  the  audience  was  sadly  stupid  and 
unresponsive,  but  we  were  penetrated  by  it.  .  .  . 
What  a  night  we  had  in  Providence !  Our  beds  were 
comfortable  enough,  for  which  we  were  deeply  thankful ; 
but  none  of  the  party  slept,  I  believe,  except  Mr.  Dolby, 
and  his  rest  was  Inevitably  cut  short  in  the  morning  by 
business.  I  believe  I  lay  awake  from  pure  pleasure  after 
such  a  treat.  Hearing  "Marigold"  and  having  supper 
afterward  with  the  dear  great  man.  We  played  a  game 
at  cards  which  was  most  curious  —  indeed,  something 
more  —  so  much  more  that  I  have  forgotten  to  be 
afraid  of  him. 

In  writing  the  chapter,  "Glimpses  of  Emerson,"  in 
"Authors  and  Friends,"  Mrs.  Fields  drew  freely  upon 
the  entry  that  here  follows  in  its  fullness. 

Tuesday  morning^  February  25.  —  Somewhat  fa- 
tigued. The  "Marigold"  went  off  brilliantly.  He  never 
read  better  nor  was  more  universally  applauded.    Mr. 


158  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Emerson  came  down  to  go,  and  passed  the  night  here; 
of  course  we  sat  talking  until  late,  he  being  much  sur- 
prised at  the  artistic  perfection  of  the  performance.  It 
was  queer  enough  to  sit  by  his  side,  for  when  his  stoicism 
did  at  length  break  down,  he  laughed  as  if  he  must 
crumble  to  pieces  at  such  unusual  bodily  agitation,  and 
with  a  face  on  as  if  it  hurt  him  dreadfully  —  to  look  at 
him  was  too  much  for  me,  already  full  of  laughter  my- 
self. Afterward  we  all  went  in  to  shake  hands  for  a 
moment. 

When  we  came  back  home  Mr.  Emerson  asked  me  a 
great  many  questions  about  C.  D.  and  pondered  much. 
Finally  he  said,  "I  am  afraid  he  has  too  much  talent  for 
his  genius;  it  is  a  fearful  locomotive  to  which  he  is 
bound  and  can  never  be  free  from  it  nor  set  at  rest.  You 
see  him  quite  wrong,  evidently;  and  would  persuade 
me  that  he  is  a  genial  creature,  full  of  sweetness  and 
amenities  and  superior  to  his  talents,  but  I  fear  he  is 
harnessed  to  them.  He  is  too  consummate  an  artist  to 
have  a  thread  of  nature  left.  He  daunts  me  !  I  have  not 
the  key." 

When  Mr.  Fields  came  in  he  repeated,  "  Mrs.  Fields 
would  persuade  me  he  is  a  man  easy  to  communicate 
with,  sympathetic  and  accessible  to  his  friends;  but  her 
eyes  do  not  see  clearly  in  this  matter,  I  am  sure."  "Look 
for  yourself,  dear  Mr.  Emerson,"  I  answered,  laughing, 
"and  then  report  to  me  afterward." 

While  we  were  enjoying  ourselves  in  this  way,  a  great 
change  has  come  to  the  country.  The  telegram  arrived 
during  the  Reading  bringing  the  news  of  the  President's 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  159 

impeachment,  126  against  47.  Since  Johnson  is  to  be 
thrust  out,  and  since  another  revolution  is  upon  us 
(Heaven  help  us  that  it  be  a  peaceful  one),  we  can  only 
be  thankful  that  the  majority  is  so  large.  Mr.  Dickens's 
account  of  the  ability  of  Johnson,  of  his  apparent  in- 
tegrity and  of  his  present  temperance,  as  contrasted  with 
the  present  (reported)  failures  of  Grant  in  this  respect, 
have  made  me  shudder,  for  I  presume  Grant  is  inevit- 
ably the  next  man.  Mrs.  Agassiz  was  evidently  pleased 
with  the  appearance  of  General  Grant  and  his  wife. 
She  Hked  their  repose  of  manner  and  ease  ;  but  I  think 
this  rather  a  shallow  judgment  because  poise  and  ease 
of  manner  belong  to  the  coarsest  natures  and  to  the 
finest ;  in  the  latter  it  is  conquest ;  and  this  is  why  these 
quahties  have  so  high  a  place  in  the  esteem  of  man  ;  but 
it  is  likewise  the  gift  of  society  people  who  neither  feel 
nor  understand  the  varied  natures  with  whom  they  come 
in  contact. 

Longfellow  is  at  work  on  a  tragedy,  of  which  no  words 
are  spoken  at  present.  Today  Mr.  Dickens  does  not  go 
out ;  he  is  writing  letters  home.  Yesterday  he  and  J. 
walked  seven  miles,  which  is  about  their  average  gen- 
erally. .  .  . 

February  Tj.  —  Longfellow's  birthday.  Last  night 
Dickens  went  to  a  supper  at  Lowell's  and  J.  passed  the 
evening  with  Longfellow.  L.'s  tragedy  comes  on  apace. 
He  looks  to  Fechter  to  help  him.  Dickens  has  doubtless 
done  much  to  quicken  him  to  write.  He  has  two  nearly 
finished  in  blank  verse,  both  begun  since  this  month 
came  in.    J.  returned  at  half-past  eleven,  bringing  an 


i6o  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

unread  newspaper  in  his  pocket  which  L.  had  lent  him, 
telling  him  to  read  something  to  me  about  Dickens 
and  return.  Ah  me !  We  could  have  cried  as  we 
read!  It  was  the  saddest  of  sad  letters,  written  at  the 
time  the  separation  from  his  wife  took  place.  The  gen- 
tleman to  whom  he  wrote  it  has  died  and  the  letter 
has  stolen  into  print.  I  only  hope  the  poor  man  may 
never  see  it. 

Tonight  he  reads  "Carol"  and  "Boots"  and  sups 
here  with  Longfellow  afterward. 

An  entry  in  Mrs.  FicKls's  liiary  about  two  years  later 
indicates  with  some  clearness  that  she  overestimated 
the  sympathy  between  lx)ngfellow  and  Dickens.  After 
a  visit  from  Longfellow,  she  wrote,  May  24,  1870:  — 

When  Mr.  L.  talks  so  much  and  so  pleasantly,  I  ani 
curiously  reminded  of  Dickens's  saying  to  Forster,  who 
lamented  that  he  did  not  see  I^xingfellow  upon  his  return 
to  I^)ndon,  "It  was  not  a  great  loss  this  time,  Forster; 
he  had  not  a  word  to  say  for  himself  —  he  was  the  most 
embarrassing  man  in  all  England  !"  It  is  a  difference  of 
temjx'ranicnt  which  will  never  let  those  two  men  come 
together.  They  have  no  handle  by  which  to  take  hold  of 
each  other.  I^)ngfellow  told  a  gentleman  at  his  table 
when  J.  was  present  that  Dickens  saved  himself  for  his 
books,  there  was  nothing  to  be  learned  in  private  —  he 
never  talked  ! ! 

To  return  to  Dickens  in  Boston  :  — 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  i6i 

Sunday^  March  i .  —  What  a  week  we  have  had  !  I 
feel  utterly  weary  this  morning,  although  I  did  start  up 
with  exceeding  bravery  and  walked  four  miles  just  after 
breakfast,  in  order  to  see  that  the  flowers  were  right  at 
church  and  to  ask  some  people  to  dinner  today  who 
could  not,  however,  come.  The  air  was  very  keen  and 
exciting  and  I  did  not  know  I  was  tired  until  I  came 
back  and  collapsed.  Our  supper  came  off  Thursday, 
but  without  Dickens.  His  cold  had  increased  upon  him 
seriously  and  he  was  really  ill  after  his  long,  difficult 
reading.  But  Longfellow  was  perfectly  lovely,  so  easily 
pleased  and  so  deeply  pleased  with  my  little  efforts  to 
make  this  day  a  festival  time.  Dickens  and  Whittier 
both  sent  affectionate  and  graceful  notes  when  they 
found  they  really  could  not  come.  Our  company  stayed 
until  two  A.M.,  Emerson  never  more  talkative  and  good. 
He  is  a  noble  purifier  of  the  social  atmosphere,  always 
keeping  the  talk  simple  as  possible  but  up  to  the  highest 
pitch  of  thought  and  feeling. 

Friday,  the  Dana  girls,  Sallie  and  Charlotte,  passed 
the  night  with  us  and  went  to  the  reading  and  shook 
hands  with  Mr.  Dickens  afterward.  They  were  per- 
fectly happy  when  they  went  away  yesterday.  .  .  . 

[The  walking  match  between  Dolby  and  Osgood  to 
which  the  following  paragraph  refers  has  already  been 
mentioned.  The  elaborately  humorous  conditions  of  the 
contest,  drawn  up  by  Dickens,  are  printed  in  "Yester- 
days with  Authors."  "We  have  had  such  a  funny  paper 
from  Dickens  today,"  Mrs.  Fields  had  written  in  her 
diary,  on  February  5th,  "that  it  can  only  describe  it- 


i62  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

self —  Articles  drawn  up  arranging  for  a  walk  and  din- 
ner upon  his  return  here,  as  if  it  were  some  fierce  legal 
document."] 

I  had  barely  time  yesterday,  after  the  girls  left,  to 
dress  and  prepare  some  flowers  and  some  lunch  and 
make  my  way  in  a  carriage,  first  to  the  Parker  House  at 
Mr.  Dickens's  kind  request,  to  see  if  all  the  table  ar- 
rangements were  perfect  for  the  dinner.  I  found  he  had 
done  everything  he  could  think  of  to  make  the  feast  go 
off  well  and  had  really  left  nothing  for  me  to  suggest,  so 
I  turned  about  and  drove  over  the  mill-dam,  following 
Messrs.  Dickens,  Dolby,  Osgood,  and  Fields,  who  had 
left  just  an  hour  before  on  a  walking  match  of  six  miles 
out  and  six  in.  This  agreement  was  made  and  articles 
drawn  up  several  weeks  ago,  signed  and  sealed  in  form 
by  all  the  parties,  to  come  off  without  regard  to  the 
weather.  The  wind  was  blowing  strong  from  the  north- 
west, very  cold,  and  the  snow  blowing,  too.  They  had 
turned  and  were  coming  back  when  I  came  up  with 
them.  Osgood  was  far  ahead  and,  after  saluting  them 
all  and  giving  a  cheer  for  America,  discovering  too  that 
they  had  refreshed  on  the  way,  I  drove  back  to  Mr. 
Osgood,  keeping  near  him  and  administering  brandy  all 
the  way  in  town.  The  walk  was  accomplished  in  pre- 
cisely two  hours  forty-eight  minutes.  Of  course  Mr. 
Dickens  stayed  by  his  man,  who  was  beaten  out  and 
out.  They  were  all  exhausted,  for  the  snow  made  the 
walking  extremely  difficult,  and  they  all  jumped  into 
carriages  and  drove  home  with  great  speed  to  bathe  and 
sleep  before  dinner. 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  163 

At  six  o'clock  we  were  assembled,  eighteen  of  us,  for 
dinner,  looking  our  very  best  (I  hope)  —  at  least  we  all 
tried  for  that,  I  am  sure  —  and  sat  punctually  down  to 
our  elegant  dinner.  I  have  never  seen  a  dinner  more 
beautiful.  Two  English  crowns  of  violets  were  at  the 
opposite  ends  of  the  table  and  flowers  everywhere  ar- 
ranged in  perfect  taste.  I  sat  at  Mr.  Dickens's  right 
hand  and  next  Mr.  Lowell.  Mrs.  Norton  sat  the  other 
side  of  our  host,  and  he  divided  his  attention  loyally 
between  us.  He  talked  with  me  about  Spiritualism  as 
it  is  called,  the  humbug  of  which  excites  his  deepest  ire, 
although  no  one  could  believe  more  entirely  than  he  in 
magnetism  and  the  unfathomed  ties  between  man  and 
man.  He  told  me  many  curious  things  about  the  traps 
which  had  been  laid  by  well-meaning  friends  to  bring 
him  into  "spiritual"  circles.  But  he  said,  "If  I  go  to  a 
friend's  house  for  the  purpose  of  exposing  a  fraud  in 
which  she  believes,  I  am  doing  a  very  disagreeable  thing 
and  not  what  she  invited  me  for.  Forster  and  I  were  in- 
vited to  Lord  Dufferin's  to  a  little  dinner  with  Home. 
I  refused,  but  Forster  went,  saying  beforehand  to  Lord 
Dufferin  that  Home  would  have  no  spirits  about  if  he 
came.  Lord  Dufferin  said,  'Nonsense,'  and  the  dinner 
came  off;  but  they  were  hardly  seated  at  table  when 
Home  announced  that  there  was  an  adverse  influence 
present  and  the  spirits  would  not  appear.  *Ah,*  said 
Forster,  'my  spirits  in  this  case  were  clearer  than  yours, 
for  they  told  me  before  I  came  that  there  would  be  no 
manifestations  tonight.'" 

Speaking  of  dreams,  he  said  he  was  convinced  that  no 


164  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

man  (judging  from  his  own  experience,  which  could  not 
be  altogether  singular,  but  must  be  a  type  of  the  experi- 
.  ence  of  others),  he  believed  no  writer,  neither  Shake- 
speare nor  Scott  nor  any  other  who  had  ever  invented  a 
character,  had  ever  been  known  to  dream  about  the 
creature  of  his  imagination.  It  would  be  like  a  man's 
dreaming  of  meeting  himself,  which  was  clearly  an  im- 
possibility. Things  exterior  to  oneself  must  always  be 
the  basis  of  our  dreams.  This  talk  about  characters  led 
him  to  say  how  mysterious  and  beautiful  the  action  of 
the  mind  was  around  any  given  subject.  "Suppose,"  he 
said,  "this  wine-glass  were  a  character,  fancy  it  a  man, 
endue  it  with  certain  qualities,  and  soon  fine  filmy  webs 
of  thoughts  almost  impalpable  coming  from  every  direc- 
tion, and  yet  wc  know  not  from  where,  spin  and  weave 
around  it  until  it  assumes  form  and  bcaury  and  becomes 
instinct  with  life.  ..." 

Mr.  Lowell  asked  him  some  question  in  a  low  voice 
about  the  country,  when  I  heard  him  say  presently  that 
it  was  very  much  grown  up,  indeed  he  should  not  know 
oftentimes  that  he  was  not  in  England,  things  went  on 
so  much  the  same  and  with  very  few  exceptions  (hardly 
worth  mentioning)  he  was  let  alone  precisely  as  he  would 
have  been  there. 

He  loves  to  talk  of  Gad's  Hill  and  stopped  joyfully 
from  other  talk  to  tell  me  how  his  daughter  Mary  ar- 
ranged his  table  with  flowers.  He  speaks  continually  of 
her  great  taste  in  combining  flowers.  "Sometimes  she 
will  have  nothing  but  water-lilies,"  he  said,  as  if  the 
memory  were  a  fragrance. 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  165 

Some  one  has  said,  "We  cannot  love  and  be  wise." 
I  will  gladly  give  away  the  inconsistent  wisdom,  for 
Jamie  and  I  are  truly  penetrated  with  grateful  love  to 
CD. 

Wednesday  J  March  3.  —  Mr.  Dickens  came  over 
last  night  with  Messrs.  Osgood  and  Dolby,  to  pass  the 
evening  and  have  a  little  punch  and  supper  and  a  merry 
game  with  us.  .  .  . 

They  left  punctually  before  eleven,  having  promised 
the  driver  they  would  not  keep  him  waiting  in  the  cold. 
Jamie  has  every  day  long  walks  with  him.  He  has  told 
him  much  regarding  the  forms  and  habits  of  his  life. 
He  is  fond  of  "Gad's  Hill,"  and  his  "dear  daughters" 
and  their  aunt.  Miss  Hogarth,  make  his  home  circle. 
What  a  dear  one  it  is  to  him  can  be  seen  whenever  his 
thought  turns  that  way ;  and  if  his  letters  do  not  come 
punctually,  he  is  in  low  spirits.  He  is  a  great  actor  and 
artist,  but  above  all  a  great  and  loving  and  well-beloved 
man.  (This  I  cling  to  in  memory  of  Mr.  Emerson's 
dictum.) 

I  am  deep  in  Carlyle's  history  and  every  little  thing  I 
hear  chimes  in  with  that.  After  the  dinner  (at  the 
Parker)  the  other  night,  Mr.  Dickens  thought  he  would 
take  a  warm  bath;  but,  the  water  being  drawn,  he 
began  playing  the  clown  in  pantomime  on  the  edge  of 
the  bath  (with  his  clothes  on)  for  the  amusement  of 
Dolby  and  Osgood ;  in  a  moment  and  before  he  knew 
where  he  was,  he  had  tumbled  in  head  over  heels,  clothes 
and  all.  A  second  and  improved  edition  of  "Les  Noy- 
ades,"  I  thought.  Surely  this  book  is  a  marvel  of  thought 


i66  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

and  labor.  Why,  why  have  I  left  it  unknown  to  myself 
until  now  ?  I  fear,  unlike  Lowell,  it  is  because  I  could 
not  read  eighteen  uninterrupted  hours  without  apo- 
plexy or  some  other  *exy,  which  would  destroy  what 
power  I  have  forever. 

March  6.  —  Mr.  Dickens  dined  here  last  night 
without  company  except  Messrs.  Dolby  and  Osgood 
and  Howells.  We  had  a  very  merry  time.  They  had 
been  to  visit  the  Cambridge  Printing  Office  in  the  after- 
noon and  had  been  shown  so  many  things  that  "the 
chief"  said  he  began  to  think  he  should  have  a  bitter 
hatred  against  any  mortal  who  undertook  to  show  him 
anything  else  in  the  world,  and  laughed  immoderately 
at  J.  T.  F.'s  proposition  to  show  him  the  new  fruit  house 
afterward.  We  all  had  a  game  of  Nincomtwitch  and 
separated  rather  early  because  we  were  going  to  a  party  ; 
and  as  C.  D.  shook  me  by  the  hand  to  say  gcx)d-bye,  he 
said  he  hoped  we  would  have  a  better  time  at  this  party 
than  he  ever  had  at  any  party  in  all  his  life.  A  part  of 
the  dinner-time  was  taken  up  by  half  guess  and  half 
calculation  of  how  far  Mr,  Dickens's  manuscript  would 
extend  in  a  single  line.  Mr.  Osgood  said  40  miles.  J. 
said  icxDjOOO  ( ! !).  I  believe  they  are  really  going  to  find 
out.  C.  D.  said  he  felt  as  if  it  would  go  farther  than  40 
miles,  and  was  inclined  to  be  "down"  on  Osgood  until 
he  saw  him  doing  figures  in  his  head  after  a  fearful 
fashion.  All  this  amusing  talk  served  to  give  one  a 
strange,  weird  sensation  of  the  value  of  words  over  time 
and  space;  these  little  marks  of  immeasurable  value 
covering  so  slight  a  portion  of  the  rough  earth  1    Howells 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  167" 

talked  a  little  of  Venice,  thought  the  Ligurians  lived 
better  than  the  Venetians.  C.  D.  said  they  ate  but  little 
meat  when  he  lived  in  Genoa;  chiefly  "pasta"  with  a 
good  soup  poured  over  it.  .  .  . 

He  leaves  Boston  today,  to  return  the  first  of  April, 
so  I  will  end  this  poor  little  surface  record  here,  hoping 
always  that  the  new  sheet  shall  have  something  written 
down  of  a  deeper,  simpler,  and  more  inseeing  nature. 

On  the  return  of  Dickens  to  Boston,  Mrs.  Fields  dined 
with  him  at  the  Parker  House,  March  31,  1868,  and, 
commenting  on  his  lack  of  "talent"  for  sleeping,  wrote 
in  her  diary :  — 

I  remember  Carlyle  says,  "When  Dulness  puts  his 
head  upon  his  mattresses,  Dulness  sleeps,"  referring  to 
the  apathetic  people  who  went  on  their  daily  habits  and 
avocations  in  Paris  while  men  were  guillotined  by  thou- 
sands in  the  next  street.  Mr.  Dickens  talked  as  usual, 
much  and  naturally  —  first  of  the  various  hotels  of 
which  he  had  late  experience.  The  one  in  Portland  was 
particularly  bad,  the  dinner,  poor  as  it  was,  being 
brought  in  small  dishes,  "  as  if  Osgood  and  I  should  quar- 
rel over  it,"  everything  being  very  bad  and  disgusting 
which  the  little  dishes  contained. 

At  last  they  came  to  the  book,  "Ecce  Homo,"  in 
which  Dickens  can  see  nothing  of  value,  any  more  than 
we.  He  thinks  Jesus  foresaw  and  guarded  as  well  as  he 
could  against  the  misinterpreting  of  his  teaching,  that 
the  four  Gospels  are  all  derived   from  some  anterior 


i68  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

written  Scriptures  —  made  up,  perhaps,  with  additions 
and  interpolations  from  the  "Talmud,"  in  which  he  ex- 
pressed great  interest  and  admiration.  Among  other 
things  which  prove  how  little  the  Gospels  should  be 
taken  literally  is  the  fact  that  broad  phylacteries  were  not 
in  use  until  some  years  after  Jesus  lived,  so  that  the 
passage  in  which  this  reference  occurs,  at  least,  must 
only  be  taken  as  conveying  the  spirit  and  temper,  not 
the  actual  form  of  speech,  of  our  Lord.  Mr.  Dickens 
spoke  reverently  and  earnestly,  and  said  much  more  if  I 
could  recall  it  perfectly. 

Then  he  came  to  "spiritualism"  again,  and  asked  if 
he  had  ever  told  us  his  interview  with  Colchester,  the 
famous  medium.  He  continued  that,  being  at  Kneb- 
worth  one  day,  Lytton,  having  finished  his  dinner  and 
retired  to  the  comfort  of  his  pipe,  said  :  "  Why  don't  you 
see  some  of  these  famous  men  ?  What  a  pity  Home  has 
just  gone."  (Here  Dickens  imitated  to  the  life  Lytton's 
manner  of  speaking,  so  I  could  see  the  man.)  "Well," 
said  D.,  "he  went  on  to  say  so  much  about  it  that  I 
inquired  of  him  who  was  the  next  best  man.  He  said 
there  was  one  Colchester,  if  possible  better  than  Home. 
So  I  took  Colchester's  address,  got  Charley  Collins,  my 
son-in-law,  to  write  to  him  asking  an  interview  for  five 
gentlemen  and  for  any  day  he  should  designate,  the 
hour  being  two  o'clock.  A  day  being  fixed,  I  wrote  to  a 
young  French  conjuror,  with  whom  I  had  no  acquaint- 
ance but  had  observed  his  great  cleverness  at  his  busi- 
ness before  the  public,  to  ask  him  to  accompany  us. 
He  acceded  with  alacrity.    Therefore,  with  poor  Chaun- 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  169 

cey  Townshend,  just  dead,  and  one  other  person  whom 
I  do  not  at  this  moment  recall,  we  waited  upon  Mr.  Col- 
chester. As  we  entered  the  room,  I  leading  the  way, 
the  man,  recognizing  me  immediately,  turned  deadly 
pale,  especially  when  he  saw  me  followed  by  the  con- 
juror and  Townshend,  who,  with  his  colored  imperial 
and  beard  and  tight-fitting  wig,  looked  like  a  member 
of  the  detective  police.  He  trembled  visibly,  became 
livid  to  the  eyes,  all  of  which  was  visible  in  spite  of 
paint  with  which  his  face  was  covered  to  the  eyes.  He 
withdrew  for  a  few  minutes,  during  which  we  heard 
him  in  hot  discussion  with  his  accomplice,  telling  him 
how  he  was  cornered  and  trying  to  imagine  some  way 
in  which  to  get  out  of  the  trap,  the  other  evidently  urg- 
ing him  to  go  through  with  it  now  the  best  way  he  could. 
He  returned,  therefore,  and  placed  himself  with  his  back 
to  the  light,  while  it  shone  upon  our  faces.  We  sat 
awhile  in  silence  until  he  began,  insolently  turning  to 
me :  'Take  up  the  alphabet  and  think  of  somebody  who 
is  dead,  pass  your  hands  over  the  letters,  and  the  spirit 
will  indicate  the  name.'  I  thought  of  Mary  and  took 
the  alphabet,  and  when  I  came  to  M,  he  rapped;  but 
I  was  sure  that  I  had  unconsciously  signified  by  some 
movement  and  determined  to  be  more  skilful  the  next 
time. 

For  the  next  letter,  therefore,  he  went  on  to  H,  and 
then  asked  me  if  that  was  right.  I  told  him  I  thought 
the  spirits  ought  to  know.  He  then  began  with 
some  one  else,  but  doing  nothing  he  became  hotter 
and  hotter,  the  perspiration  pouring  from  his  face,  until 


I70  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

he  got  up,  said  the  spirits  were  against  him,  and  was 
about  to  withdraw.  I  then  rose  and  told  him  that  it 
was  the  most  shameless  imposition,  that  he  had  got  us 
there  with  the  intent  to  deceive  and  under  false  pre- 
tences, that  he  had  done  nothing  and  could  do  nothing. 
He  offered  to  return  our  money  —  I  said  the  fact  of  his 
taking  the  money  at  all  was  the  point.  At  last  the 
wretch  said,  turning  to  the  Frenchman,  'I  did  tell  you 
one  name,  Valentine.'  'Yes,'  answered  the  young  con- 
juror, with  a  sudden  burst  of  English,  'Yes,  but  I 
showed  it  to  you  !'  indicating  with  a  swift  movement  of 
the  hand  how  he  had  given  him  a  chance."  Then  it  was 
all  up  with  Colchester,  and  more  scathing  words  than 
those  spoken  by  Dickens  to  him  have  been  seldom 
spoken  by  mortal. 

It  was  the  righteous  anger  of  one  trying  to  avenge 
and  help  the  world.  Mr.  Dickens  always  seems  to 
me  like  one  who,  working  earnestly  with  his  eyes  fixed 
on  the  immutable,  nevertheless  finds  to  his  own  sur- 
prise that  his  words  place  him  among  the  prophets. 
He  does  not  arrogate  a  place  to  himself  there;  indeed 
he  is  singularly  humble  (as  it  seems  to  us)  in  the 
moral  position  he  takes;  but  for  all  that  is  led  by  the 
Divine  Hand  to  see  what  a  power  he  is  and  in  an 
unsought-for  manner  finds  himself  among  the  teachers 
of  the  earth.  He  says  nowhere  is  a  man  placed  in  such 
an  unfair  position  as  at  church.  If  one  could  only  be 
allowed  to  get  up  and  state  his  objections,  it  would  be 
very  well,  but  under  the  circumstances  he  declines 
being  preached  to. 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  171 

A  few  days  later  Mrs.  Fields  heard  Dickens  read  the 
"Christmas  Carol"  for  the  last  time  in  Boston. 


Such  a  wonderful  evening  as  it  was  ! !  We  were  on  fire 
with  enthusiasm  and  in  spite  of  some  people  who  went 
with  us  .  .  .  looking,  as  C.  D.  said,  as  if  they  were  sorry 
they  had  come,  they  were  really  filled  with  enthusiasm, 
and  enjoying  as  fully  as  their  critical  and  crossed  natures 
would  allow.  He  himself  was  full  of  fun  and  put  in  all 
manner  of  queer  things  for  our  amusement ;  but  what  he 
put  in,  involuntarily,  when  he  turned  on  a  man  who  was 
standing  staring  fixedly  at  him  with  an  opera  glass,  was 
almost  more  than  we  could  bear.  The  stolidity  of  the 
man,  the  fixed  glass,  the  despairing,  annihilating  look  of 
Dickens  were  too  much  for  our  equanimity. 

Thursday.  —  Anniversary  of  C.  D.'s  marriage  day 
and  of  John  Forster's  birthday.  C.  D.  not  at  all  well, 
coughing  all  the  time  and  in  low  spirits.  Mr.  Dolby 
came  in  when  J.  was  there  in  the  morning  to  say  there 
were  two  gentlemen  from  New  Bedford  (friends  of 
Mr.  Osgood's)  who  wished  to  see  him.  Would  he  allow 
them  to  come  in  ?  "No,  I  '11  be  damned  if  I  will,"  he 
said,  like  a  spoiled  child,  starting  up  from  his  chair ! 
J.  was  equally  amused  and  astonished  at  the  outburst, 
but  sleeplessness,  narcotics,  and  the  rest  of  the  crew  of 
disturbers  have  done  their  worst.  My  only  fear  is  he 
may  be  ill.  However,  they  had  a  walk  together  towards 
noon  and  he  revived,  but  coughed  badly  in  the  evening. 
I  think,  too,  only  ^1300  in  the  house  was  bad  for  his 
spirits  1 


172  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

/Ipril  7.  —  Dickens  .  .  .  told  Jamie  the  other  day 
in  walking  that  he  wrote  "Nicholas  Nickleby"  and 
"Oliver  Twist"  at  the  same  time  for  rival  magazines 
from  month  to  month.  Once  he  was  taken  ill,  with  both 
magazines  waiting  for  unwritten  sheets.  He  immedi- 
ately took  steamer  for  Boulogne,  took  a  room  in  an  inn 
there,  secure  from  interruption,  and  was  able  to  return 
just  in  season  for  the  monthly  issues  with  his  work  com- 
pleted. He  sees  now  how  the  work  of  both  would  have 
been  better  done  had  he  worked  only  upon  one  at  a 
time. 

After  the  exertion  of  last  evening  he  looked  pale  and 
exhausted.  Longfellow  and  Norton  joined  with  us  in 
trying  to  dissuade  him  from  future  Readings  after  these 
two.  He  docs  not  recover  his  vitality  after  the  effort 
of  reading,  and  his  spirits  are  naturally  somewhat  de- 
pressed by  the  use  of  soporifics,  which  at  length  became 
a  necessity.  .  .  .  "CoppcrficKl"  was  a  tragedy  last 
night  —  less  vigor  but  great  tragic  power  came  out  of 
it. 

April  8.  —  In  spite  of  a  deluge  of  rain  last  night 
there  was  a  large  audience  to  hear  Dickens,  and  lx)ng- 
fellow  came  as  usual.  He  read  with  more  vigor  than 
the  night  before  and  seemed  better.  .  .  .  The  time  ap- 
proaches swiftly  for  our  flight  to  New  York.  We  dread 
to  leave  home  and  would  only  do  it  for  hiniy  besides,  the 
pleasure  must  be  much  in  the  fact  of  trying  to  do  some- 
thing rather  than  in  really  doing  anything,  for  I  fear  he 
will  be  too  ill  antl  utterly  fatigued  to  care  much  about 
anything  but  rest. 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  173 

Friday y  April  10.  —  Left  home  at  eight  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  found  our  dearly  beloved  friend  C.  D. 
already  awaiting  us,  with  two  roses  in  his  coat  and  look- 
ing as  fresh  as  possible.  It  was  my  first  ride  in  America 
in  a  compartment  car.  Mr.  Dolby  made  the  fourth  in 
our  little  party  and  we  had  a  table  and  a  game  of  "Nin- 
com"  and  "Casino"  and  talked  and  laughed  and  whiled 
away  the  time  pleasantly  until  we  arrived  here  at  the 
Westminster  Hotel  in  time  for  dinner  at  six.  I  was  im- 
pressed all  day  long  with  the  occasional  languor  which 
came  over  C.  D.  and  always  with  the  exquisite  delicacy 
and  quickness  of  his  perception,  something  as  fine  as  the 
finest  woman  possesses,  which  combined  itself  won- 
drously  with  the  action  of  the  massive  brain  and  the 
rapid  movement  of  those  strong,  strong  hands.  I  felt 
how  deeply  we  had  learned  to  love  him  and  how  hard  it 
would  be  for  us  to  part. 

At  dinner  he  gave  us  a  marvellous  description  of  his 
life  as  a  reporter.  It  seems  he  invented  (in  a  measure)  a 
system  of  stenography  for  himself;  this  is  to  say  he 
altered  Gurney's  system  to  suit  his  own  needs.  He  was 
a  very  young  man,  not  yet  20,  when  at  seven  guineas  a 
week  he  was  engaged  as  reporter  on  the"  Morning  Chron- 
icle," then  a  very  large  and  powerful  paper.  At  this 
period  the  present  Lord  Derby,  then  Mr.  Stanley,  was 
beginning  his  brilliant  career,  and  O'Connell,  Shiel,  and 
others  were  at  the  height  of  their  powers.  Wherever 
these  men  spoke  a  corps  of  reporters  was  detailed  to 
follow  them  and  with  the  utmost  expedition  forward 
verbatim  reports  to  the  "  Chronicle."  Often  and  often  he 


174  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

has  gone  by  post-chaise  to  Edinburgh,  heard  a  speech 
or  a  part  of  it  (having  instructions,  whatever  happened, 
to  leave  the  place  again  at  a  certain  hour,  the  next  re- 
porter taking  up  his  work  where  he  must  leave  it),  and 
has  driven  all  the  way  back  to  London,  a  bag  of  sover- 
eigns on  one  side  of  his  body  and  a  bag  of  slips  of  paper 
on  the  other,  writing,  writing  desperately  all  the  way 
by  the  light  of  a  small  lamp.  At  each  station  a  man  on 
horseback  would  stand  ready  to  seize  the  sheets  already 
prepared  and  ride  with  them  to  London.  Often  and 
often  this  work  would  make  him  deadly  sick  and  he 
would  have  to  plunge  his  head  out  of  the  window  to  re- 
lieve himself;  still  the  writing  went  steadily  forward  on 
very  little  slips  of  paper  which  he  held  before  him,  just 
resting  his  body  on  the  edge  of  the  seat  and  his  paper  on 
the  front  of  the  window  underneath  the  lamp.  As  the 
station  was  reached,  a  sudden  plunge  into  the  pocket  of 
sovereigns  would  pay  the  postboys,  another  behind  him 
would  render  up  the  completed  pages,  and  a  third  into 
the  pocket  on  the  other  side  wouKl  give  him  the  fresh 
paper  to  carry  forward  the  inexorable,  unremitting  work. 
At  this  period  there  was  a  large  sheet  started  in  which 
all  the  speeches  of  Parliament  were*  reported  verbatim 
in  order  to  preserve  them  for  future  reference  —  a  mon- 
strous plan  which  fell  through  after  a  time.  For  this 
paper  it  was  especially  desired  to  have  a  speech  of  Mr. 
Stanley  accurately  reported  upon  the  condition  of  Ire- 
land, containing  suggestions  for  the  amelioration  of  the 
people's  suffering.  It  was  a  very  long  and  eloquent 
speech,  and  took  many  hours  in  the  delivery.    There  were 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  175 

eight  reporters  upon  the  work,  each  to  work  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  and  then  to  retire  to  write  out  his 
portion  and  be  succeeded  by  the  next.  It  happened  that 
the  roll  of  reporters  was  exhausted  before  the  speech 
came  to  an  end  and  C.  D.  was  called  in  to  report  the 
last  portions,  which  were  very  eloquent.  This  was  on 
Friday,  and  on  Saturday  the  whole  was  given  to  the 
press  and  the  young  reporter  ran  down  to  the  country 
for  a  Sunday's  rest.  Sunday  morning  had  scarcely 
dawned  "when  my  poor  father,  who  was  a  man  of  im- 
mense energy,  surprised  me  by  making  his  appearance 
The  speech  had  come  into  Mr.  Stanley's  hands,  who  was 
most  anxious  to  have  it  correctly  given  in  order  to  have 
it  largely  circulated  in  Ireland,  and  he  found  it  all  bosh, 
hardly  a  word  right,  except  at  the  beginning  and  the 
end.  Sending  immediately  to  the  office,  he  had  ob- 
tained my  sheets,  at  the  top  of  which,  according  to  cus- 
tom, the  name  of  the  reporter  was  written,  and,  finding 
the  name  of  Dickens,  had  immediately  sent  in  search  of 
me.  My  father,  thinking  this  would  be  the  making  of 
me,  came  immediately,  and  I  followed  him  back  to 
London.  I  remember  perfectly  the  look  of  the  room  and 
of  the  two  gentlemen  in  it  as  I  entered  —  Mr.  Stanley 
and  his  father.  They  were  extremely  courteous,  but  I 
could  see  their  evident  surprise  at  the  appearance  of  so 
young  a  man.  For  a  moment  as  we  talked  I  had  taken  a 
seat  extended  to  me  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  Mr. 
Stanley  told  me  he  wished  to  go  over  the  whole  speech, 
and  if  I  was  ready  he  would  begin.  Where  would  I  like 
to  sit  ?    I  told  him  I  was  very  well  where  I  was  and  we 


176  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

would  begin  immediately.  He  tried  to  induce  me  to  sit 
elsewhere  or  more  comfortably,  but  at  that  time  in  the 
House  of  Commons  there  was  nothing  but  one's  knees 
to  write  upon  and  I  had  formed  the  habit  of  it.  Without 
further  pause  then  he  began,  and  went  on  hour  after 
hour  to  the  end,  often  becoming  very  much  excited, 
bringing  down  his  hand  with  violence  upon  the  desk 
near  which  he  stood  and  rising  at  the  end  into  great  elo- 
quence. 

"In  these  later  years  we  never  meet  without  that 
scene  returning  vividly  to  my  mind,  as  I  have  no  doubt 
it  does  to  his  also,  but  I,  of  course,  have  never  referred 
to  it,  leaving  him  to  do  so  if  he  shall  ever  think  fit. 

"Shiel  was  a  small  man  with  a  queer  high  voice  and 
spoke  very  fast.  O'Connell  had  a  fine  brogue  which  he 
cultivated,  and  a  magnificent  eye.  He  had  written  a 
speech  about  this  time  upon  the  wrongs  of  Ireland,  and, 
though  he  repeated  it  many,  many  times  during  three 
months  when  I  followed  him  about  the  country,  I  never 
heard  him  give  it  twice  the  same,  nor  ever  without  being 
himself  deeply  moved."  ' 

Mr.  Dickens's  imitation  of  Bulwer  Lytton  is  so  vivid 
that  I  feel  as  if  it  were  taking  a  glimpse  at  the  man  him- 
self. His  deaf  manner  of  speaking  he  represents  exactly. 
He  says  he  is  very  brilliant  and  quick  in  conversation, 
and  knows  everything  ! !  He  is  a  conscientious  and  un- 
remitting student  and  worker.  "I  have  been  surprised 
to  see  how  well  his  books  wear.    Lately  I  have  reread 

'In  Yesterdays  with  .luthors  (sec  pp.  230-31),  FicKis  mailc  use,  with  re- 
visions and  omissions,  of  this  portion  of  his  wife's  diary. 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  177 

'Pelham'  and  I  assure  you  I  found  it  admirable.  His 
speech  at  the  dinner  given  to  me  just  before  leaving  was 
well  written,  full  of  good  things,  but  delivered  exe- 
crably. He  lacks  a  kind  of  confidence  in  his  own  powers 
which  is  necessary  in  a  good  speaker." 

Speaking  of  O'Connell,  Mr.  Dickens  said  there  had 
been  nobody  since  who  could  compare  with  him  but 
John  Bright,  who  is  at  present  the  finest  speaker  in  Eng- 
land. Cobden  was  fond  of  reasoning,  and  hardly  what 
would  be  called  a  brilliant  speaker ;  but  his  noble  truth- 
fulness and  devotion  to  the  cause  to  which  he  had 
pledged  himself  made  him  one  of  the  grandest  of  Eng- 
land's great  men.  I  asked  about  Mrs.  Cobden.  He  told 
me  she  had  been  made  very  comfortable  and  in  a  beauti- 
ful manner.  After  her  husband's  death,  his  affairs  hav- 
ing become  involved  by  some  bad  investment  he  had 
made,  a  committee  of  six  gentlemen  came  together  to 
consider  what  should  be  done  to  commemorate  his  great 
and  unparalleled  devotion  to  his  country.  The  result 
was,  instead  of  having  a  public  subscription  for  Mrs. 
Cobden  with  the  many  unavoidable  and  disagreeable 
features  of  such  a  step,  each  of  these  gentlemen  sub- 
scribed about  £12,000,  thus  making  £70,000,  a  suffi- 
cient sum  to  make  her  most  comfortable  for  life.  .  .  . 

I  have  forgotten  to  say  how  in  those  long  rides  from 
Edinburgh  the  mud  dashed  up  and  into  the  opened 
windows  of  the  post-chaise,  nor  how  they  would  be 
obliged  to  fling  it  off  from  their  faces  and  even  from  the 
papers  on  which  they  wrote.  As  Dickens  told  us,  he 
flung  the  imaginary  evil  from  him  as  he  did  the  real  in 


178  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

the  days  long  gone,  and  we  could  see  him  with  the  old 
disgust  returned.  He  said,  by  the  way,  that  never 
since  those  old  days  when  he  left  the  House  of  Com- 
mons as  a  Reporter  had  he  entered  it  again.  His  hatred 
of  the  falseness  of  talk,  of  bombastic  eloquence,  he  had 
heard  there  made  it  impossible  for  him  ever  to  go  in 
again  to  hear  anyone. 

Sunday^  April  ii.  —  Last  night  we  went  to  the  circus 
together,  C.  D.,  J.,  and  I.  It  is  a  pretty  building.  I  was 
astonished  at  the  knowledge  C.  D.  showed  of  every- 
thing before  him.  He  knew  how  the  horses  were  sten- 
ciled, how  tight  the  wire  bridles  were,  etc.  The  monkey 
was,  however,  the  chief  attraction.  He  was  rather 
drunk  or  tired  last  night  and  did  not  show  to  good  ad- 
vantage, but  he  knew  how  to  do  all  the  things  quite  as 
well  as  the  men.  When  the  young  rope-dancer  slipped 
(he  was  but  an  apprentice  at  the  business,  without 
wages,  C.  D.  thought),  he  tried  over  and  over  again  to 
accomplish  a  certain  somersault  until  he  achieved  it, 
"That  's  the  law  of  the  circus,"  said  C.  D. ;  "they  are 
never  allowed  to  give  up,  and  it  's  a  capital  rule  for 
everything  in  life.  Doubtless  this  idea  has  been  handed 
down  from  the  Greeks  or  Romans  and  these  people 
know  nothing  about  where  it  came  from.  Hut  it  's  well 
for  all  of  us."  .  .  . 

.At  six  o'clock  Mr.  Dickens  and  Mr.  Dolby  came  in  to 
dinner.  He  seemed  much  revived  both  in  health  and 
spirits,  in  spite  of  the  weather.  .  .  . 

Dickens  talked  of  Frederick  Lemaitre  ;  he  is  upwards 
of  sixty   years  old   now;    but   he   has   always  lived   a 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  179 

wretched  life,  a  low,  poor  fellow ;  yet  he  will  surprise  the 
actors  continually  by  the  new  points  he  will  make.  He 
will  come  in  at  rehearsal,  go  about  the  stage  in  an  abject 
wretched  manner,  with  clothes  torn  and  soiled  as  he 
has  just  emerged  from  his  vulgar,  vicious  haunts,  and 
without  giving  sign  or  glimmer  of  his  power.  Presently 
he  says  to  the  prompter,  who  always  has  a  tallow  candle 
burning  on  his  box,  "Give  me  your  candle";  then  he 
will  blow  it  out  and  with  the  snuff  make  a  cross  upon 
his  book.  "What  are  you  going  to  do,  Frederick  ?"  the 
actors  say.  "I  don't  know  yet;  you  '11  see  by  and  by," 
he  says,  and  day  after  day  perhaps  will  pass,  until  one 
night  when  he  will  suddenly  flash  upon  them  some  won- 
derful point.  They,  the  actors,  watching  him,  try  to 
hold  themselves  prepared,  and  if  he  gives  them  the  least 
hint  will  mould  their  parts  to  fit  his.  Sometimes  he 
will  ask  for  a  chair.  "What  will  you  do  with  it,  Fred- 
erick?" He  does  not  reply,  but  night  after  night  the 
chair  is  placed  there  until  he  makes  his  point.  He  often 
comes  hungry  to  the  theatre,  and  the  manager  must 
give  him  a  dinner  and  pay  for  it  before  he  will  go  on. 
Fechter,  from  whom  these  particulars  come,  tells 
Dickens  that  there  can  be  nothing  more  wonderful  than 
his  acting  in  the  old  scene  of  the  miserable  father  who 
kills  his  own  son  at  the  inn.  The  son,  coming  in  rich  and 
handsome,  and  seeing  this  old  sot  about  to  be  driven 
from  the  porch  by  the  servant,  tells  the  man  to  give  him 
meat  and  wine.  While  he  eats  and  drinks,  the  wretch 
sees  how  freely  the  rich  man  handles  his  gold  and  re- 
solves to  kill  him.    Fechter's  description,  with  his  own 


i8o  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTTSS 

knowledge  of  Lemaitre,  had  so  inspired   Dickens  that 
he  was  able  to  reproduce  him  again  for  us. 

JVednesday^  April  15.  —  [On  returning  from  a  read- 
ing in  "Steinway  Hall,  than  which  nothing  could  be 
worse  for  reading  or  speaking"]:  He  soon  came  up 
after  a  little  soup,  when  he  called  for  brandy  and  lemons 
and  made  such  a  burnt  brandy  punch  as  has  been 
seldom  tasted  this  side  of  the  "pond."  As  the  punch 
blazed  his  spirits  rose  and  he  began  to  sing  an  old- 
fashioned  comic  song  such  as  in  the  old  days  was  given 
between  the  plays  at  the  theatre.  One  song  led  to  an- 
other until  we  fell  into  inextinguishable  laughter,  for 
anything  more  comic  than  his  renderings  of  the  chorus 
cannot  be  imagined.  Surely  there  is  no  living  actor 
who  could  excel  him  in  these  things  if  he  chose  to  exert 
his  ability.  His  renilering  of  "Chrush  ke  Ian  ne  chous- 
kin  !!"  or  a  lingo  which  sounded  like  that  (the  refrain 
of  an  old  Irish  song)  was  something  tremendous.  We 
laughed  till  I  was  really  afraid  he  would  make  himself 
too  hoarse  to  read  the  next  night.  He  gave  a  queer  old 
song  full  of  rhymes,  obtained  with  immense  difficulty 
and  circumlocution,  to  the  word  "annuity,"  which  it 
appeared  has  been  sought  by  an  old  woman  with  great 
assiduity  and  granted  with  immense  i)icougruity.  The 
negro  minstrels  have  in  great  part  supplanted  these 
queer  old  English,  Irish,  and  Scotch  ballads,  but  they 
are  sure  to  come  up  again  from  time  to  time.  \Vc  did 
not  separate  until  12,  and  felt  the  next  morning  (as  he 
said)  as  if  we  had  had  a  regular  orgy.  They  did  not 
forget,  Dolby  and  he,  to  pay  a  proper  tribute  to  "  Mary- 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  i8i 

land,  My  Maryland,"  and  "Dixie"  as  very  stirring 
ballads. 

[After  another  reading,  from  which  Dickens  came 
home  extremely  tired] :  We  ran  in  at  once  to  talk  with 
him  and  he  soon  cheered  up.  When  I  first  pushed  open 
the  door  he  was  a  perfect  picture  of  prostration,  his 
head  thrown  back  without  support  on  the  couch,  the 
blood  suffusing  his  throat  and  temples  again  where  he 
had  been  very  white  a  few  minutes  before.  This  is  a 
physical  peculiarity  with  Dickens  which  I  have  never 
seen  before  in  a  man,  though  women  are  very  subject 
to  that  thing.  Excitement  and  exercise  of  reading  will 
make  the  blood  rush  into  his  hands  until  they  become 
at  times  almost  black,  and  his  face  and  head  (especially 
since  he  has  become  so  fatigued)  will  turn  from  red  to 
white  and  back  to  red  again  without  his  being  conscious 
of  it. 

Friday y  April  17.  —  Weather  excessively  warm,  sky 
often  overcast.  Last  evening  Mr.  Dickens  read  again 
and  for  the  last  time  "  Copperfield"  and  "  Bob  Sawyer." 
He  was  much  exhausted  and  said  he  watched  a  man 
who  was  carried  out  in  a  fainting  condition  to  see  how 
they  managed  it,  with  the  lively  interest  of  one  who  was 
about  to  go  through  the  same  scene  himself.  The  heat 
from  the  gas  around  him  was  intolerable.  After  the 
reading  we  went  into  his  room  to  have  a  little  soup, 
"broiled  bones,"  and  a  sherry  cobbler.  His  spirits  were 
good  in  spite  of  fatigue,  the  thought  of  home  and  the 
memories  of  England  coming  back  vividly.  We,  finally, 
from  talk  of  English  scenery,  found  ourselves  in  Strat- 


1 82  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

ford.  He  says  there  is  an  inn  at  Rochester,  very  old, 
which  he  has  no  doubt  Shakespeare  haunted.  This  con- 
viction came  forcibly  upon  him  one  night  as  he  was 
walking  that  way  and  discovered  Charles's  Wain  set- 
ting over  the  chimney  just  as  Shakespeare  has  described. 
"When  you  come  to  Gad's  Hill,  please  God,  I  will  show 
you  Charles's  Wain  setting  over  the  old  roof." 

We  left  him  early,  hoping  he  would  sleep,  but  he 
hardly  closed  his  eyes  all  night.  Whether  he  was 
haunted  by  visions  of  home,  or  what  the  cause  was,  we 
cannot  discover,  but  whatever  it  may  be,  his  strength 
fails  under  such  unnatural  and  continual  excitement. 

Saturday ^  April  i8.  —  Mr.  Dickens  has  a  badly 
sprained  foot.  We  like  our  rooms  at  his  hotel  —  47  is 
the  number.  Last  night  was  "Marigold"  and  "Gamp" 
for  the  last  time.  He  threw  in  a  few  touches  for  our 
amusement  and  a  great  deal  of  vigor  into  the  whole. 
Afterward  we  took  supper  together,  when  he  told  us 
some  remarkable  things.  Among  others  he  rehearsed  a 
scene  described  to  him  years  ago  by  Dr.  Eliotson  of 
London  of  a  man  about  to  be  hanged.  His  last  hour  had 
approached  as  the  doctor  entered  the  cell  of  the  crim- 
inal, who  was  as  justly  sentenced  as  ever  a  wretch  was 
for  having  cut  off  the  end  of  his  own  illegitimate  child. 
The  man  was  rocking  miserably  in  his  chair  back  and 
forth  in  a  weak,  maudlin  condition,  while  the  clergyman 
in  attendance,  who  had  spoken  of  him  as  repentant  and 
religious  in  his  frame  of  mind,  was  administering  the 
sacrament.  The  wine  stood  in  a  cup  at  one  side  untij  the 
sacred  words  were  said,  when  at  the  proper  moment  the 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  183 

clergyman  gave  it  to  the  man,  who  was  still  rocking 
backward  and  forward,  muttering,  "What  will  my  poor 
mother  think  of  this?"  Finding  the  cup  in  his  hands, 
he  looked  into  it  for  a  moment  as  if  trying  to  collect  him- 
self, and  then,  putting  on  his  regular  old  pothouse  man- 
ner, he  said,  "Gen'lemen,  I  drink  your  health,"  and 
drained  the  cup  in  a  drunken  way.  "I  think,"  said 
C.  D.,  "it  is  thirty  years  since  I  heard  Dr.  Eliotson  tell 
me  this,  but  I  shall  never  forget  the  horror  that  scene 
inspired  in  my  mind."  The  talk  had  taken  this  turn 
from  the  fact  of  a  much-dreaded  Press  dinner  which  is 
to  come  off  tonight  and  which  jocosely  assumed  the 
idea  of  a  hanging  to  their  minds.  C.  D.  said  he  had  often 
thought  how  restricted  one's  conversation  must  become 
with  a  man  who  was  to  be  hanged  in  half  an  hour.  "You 
could  not  say,  if  it  rains,  'We  shall  have  fine  weather 
tomorrow ! '  for  what  would  that  be  to  him  ?  For  my 
part,  I  think  I  should  confine  my  remarks  to  the  times 
of  Julius  Caesar  and  King  Alfred  ! !"  He  then  related  a 
story  of  a  condemned  man  out  of  whom  no  evidence 
could  be  elicited.  He  would  not  speak.  At  last  he  was 
seated  before  a  fire  for  a  few  moments,  just  before  his 
execution,  when  a  servant  entered  and  smothered  what 
fire  there  was  with  a  huge  hodful  of  coal.  ''In  half  an 
hour  that  will  be  a  goodfire^'  he  was  heard  to  murmur. 

Mr.  Dickens  has  now  read  76  times.  It  seems  like  a 
dream. 

Sunday^  April  19.  —  Last  night  the  great  New 
York  Press  dinner  came  off.  It  was  a  close  squeeze  with 
Mr.  Dickens  to  get  there  at  all.    He  had  been  taken 


i84  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

lame  the  night  before,  his  foot  becoming  badly  swollen 
and  painful.  In  spite  of  a  skilful  physician  he  grew  worse 
and  worse  every  hour,  and  when  the  time  for  the  dinner 
arrived  he  was  unable  to  bear  anything  upon  his  foot. 
So  long  as  he  was  above  ground,  however,  it  was  a 
necessity  he  should  go,  and  an  hour  and  a  half  after  the 
time  appointed,  with  his  foot  sewed  up  in  black  silk,  he 
made  his  way  to  Delmonico's.  Poor  man  !  Nothing 
could  be  more  unfortunate,  but  he  bore  this  difficult 
part  off  in  a  stately  and  composed  manner  as  if  it  were  a 
sign  of  the  garter  he  were  doffing  for  the  first  time  in- 
stead of  a  badge  of  ill  health.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  the 
papers  will  telegraph  news  of  his  illness  to  England. 
This  seems  to  disturb  him  more  than  anything  else. 
Ah  !  What  a  mystery  these  ties  of  love  are  —  such  pain, 
such  ineffable  happiness  —  the  only  happiness.  After 
his  return  he  repeated  to  me  from  memory  every  word 
of  his  speech  without  dropping  one.  He  never  thinks  of 
such  a  thing  as  writing  his  speeches,  but  simply  turns  it 
over  in  his  mind  and  "balances  the  sentences, "  when  he 
is  all  right.  He  produced  an  immense  effect  on  the  Press 
of  New  York,  tremendous  applause  responding  to  every 
sentence.  Curtis's  speech  was  very  beautiful.  "I  think 
him  the  very  best  speaker  I  ever  heard,"  said  C.  D.  "  I 
am  sure  he  would  produce  a  great  effect  in  England  from 
the  sympathetic  quality  he  possesses."  I  have  seldom 
seen  a  finer  exercise  of  energy  of  will  than  Mr.  Dickens's 
attendance  on  this  dinner.  It  brought  its  own  reward, 
too,  for  he  returned  with  his  foot  feeling  better.  He 
made  a  rum  punch  in  his  room,  where  we  sat  until  one 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  185 

o'clock.  After  repeating  his  speech,  he  gave  us  an  imi- 
tation of  old  Rogers  as  he  would  repeat  a  quatrain  :  — • 

"The  French  have  sense  in  what  they  do 
Which  we  are  quite  without. 
For  what  in  Paris  they  call  goUt 
In  England  we  call  gout." 

Mr.  Dolby  sat  at  dinner  near  a  poor  bohemian  of  great 
keenness  of  mind,  Henry  Clapp,  by  name,  who  said  some 
things  worthy  of  Rivarol  or  any  other  wittiest  French- 
man we  might  choose  to  select.  Speaking  of  Horace 
Greeley  (the  chairman  at  the  dinner),  he  said  :  "He  was 
a  self-made  man  and  worshipped  his  creator."    Of  Dr. 

O ,  a  vain  and  popular  clergyman,  that  "he  was 

continually  looking  for  a  vacancy  in  the  Trinity."  Of 
Mr.  Dickens,  that  "nothing  gave  him  so  high  an  idea 
of  Mr.  Dickens's  genius  as  the  fact  that  he  created 
Uriah  Heep  without  seeing  a  certain  Mr.  Young  (who 
sat  near  them),  and  Wilkins  Micawber  without  being 
acquainted  with  himself  (Henry  Clapp)."    Of  Henry 

T that  "he  aimed  at  nothing  and  always  hit  the 

mark  precisely."  .  .  . 

This  speech  of  Mr.  Dickens  will  make  a  fine  effect,  a 
reactionary  effect,  in  the  country.  The  enthusiasm  for 
him  knew  no  bounds.  Charles  Norton  spoke  for  New 
England.  I  had  a  visit  from  him  this  morning  as  well 
as  from  Mr.  Osgood,  Dolby,  etc.  C.  D.  lunched  at  the 
Jockey  Club  with  Dr.  Barker  and  Donald  Mitchell  and 
returned  to  dine  with  us.  He  talked  of  actors,  artists, 
and  the  clergy  —  church  and  religion  —  but  was  evi- 
dently suffering  more  or  less  all  the  time  with  his  foot, 


1 86  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

yet  kept  up  a  good  heart  until  nine  o'clock,  when  he  re- 
tired to  the  privacy  of  his  own  room.  He  feels  bitterly 
the  wrong  under  which  English  dissenters  have  labored 
for  years  in  being  obliged  not  only  to  support  their  own 
church  interests  in  which  they  do  believe,  but  also  the 
abuses  of  the  English  Church  against  which  their  whole 
lives  are  a  continual  protest.  He  spoke  of  the  beauty  of 
the  landscape  through  which  we  had  both  been  walking 
and  driving  under  a  grey  sky,  with  the  eager  spring 
looking  out  among  leafless  branches  and  dancing  in  the 
red  and  yellow  sap.  He  said  it  had  always  been  a  fancy 
of  his  to  write  a  story,  keeping  the  whole  thing  in  the 
same  landscape,  but  picturing  its  constantly  varying 
eflfects  upon  men  and  things  and  chiefly,  of  course,  upon 
the  minds  of  men.  He  asked  me  if  I  had  ever  read 
Crabbe's  "Lover's  Ritlc."  We  became  indignant  over 
a  tax  of  five  per  cent  which  had  just  been  laid  upon  the 
entire  proceeds  of  his  Readings,  telegraphed  to  Wash- 
ington, and  found  that  it  was  unjust  and  had  been 
taken  off. 

Monday^  April  20.  —  Attended  a  meeting  of  a  new 
"institution"  just  on  foot,  first  called  "Sorosis"  and 
afterwards  "Woman's  League"  for  the  benefit  and 
mutual  support  of  women.  It  was  the  first  official  meet- 
ing, but  it  proved  so  unofficial  that  I  was  entertained, 
and  amused  as  well,  and  was  able  on  my  return  to  make 
Mr.  Dickens  laugh  until  he  declared  if  anything  could 
make  him  feel  better  for  the  evening  that  account  of  the 
Woman's  League  would. 

Tuesday.  —  I  find  it  very  difficult   today  to  write  at 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  187 

all.  Mr.  Dickens  is  on  his  bed  and  has  been  unable  to 
rise,  in  spite  of  efforts  all  day  long.  .  .  .  Mr.  Norton 
has  been  here  and  we  have  been  obliged  to  go  out,  but 
our  hearts  have  been  in  that  other  room  all  the  time 
where  our  dear  friend  lies  suffering.  .  .  .  Oh !  these 
last  times  —  what  heartbreak  there  is  in  the  words.  I 
lay  awake  since  early  this  morning  (though  we  did  not 
leave  him  until  half-past  twelve)  feeling  as  if  when  I 
arose  we  must  say  good-bye.  How  relieved  I  felt  to 
brush  the  tears  away  and  know  there  was  one  more  day, 
but  even  that  gain  was  lessened  when  I  found  he  could 
not  rise  and  even  this  must  be  a  day  of  separation  too. 
When  Jamie  told  him  last  night  he  felt  like  erecting  a 
statue  to  him  because  of  his  heroism  in  doing  his  duty 
so  well,  he  laughed  and  said,  "No,  don't ;  take  down  one 
of  the  old  ones  instead  !" 

The  diary  goes  on  to  express  the  genuine  sorrow  of 
Mrs.  Fields  and  her  husband  at  parting  from  a  friend 
who  had  so  completely  absorbed  their  affection,  but  in 
terms  which  the  diarist  herself  would  have  been  the 
first  to  regard  as  more  suitable  for  manuscript  than  for 
print.  The  pages  that  contain  them  throw  more  light 
upon  Mrs.  Fields  —  a  warm  and  tender  light  it  is  — 
than  upon  Dickens.  There  is,  however,  one  paragraph, 
written  after  the  Fieldses  had  returned  to  Boston  from 
New  York,  which  tells  something  both  of  Dickens  and 
of  Queen  Victoria,  in  whose  personality  the  public  in- 
terest appears  to  be  perpetual;  and  with  this  passage 
the  quotations  from  the  diary  shall  end. 


1 88  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Friday^  April  24.  —  After  the  Press  dinner  in  New 
York  Mr.  Dickens  repeated  all  his  speech  to  me,  as  I 
believe  I  have  said  above,  never  dropping  a  word.  "  1 
feel,"  he  said,  "as  if  I  were  listening  to  the  sound  of  my 
own  voice  as  I  recall  it.  A  very  curious  sensation." 
Jamie  asked  him  if  Curtis  was  quite  right  in  the  facts  of 
his  speech.  He  said,  "Not  altogether,  as,  for  instance, 
in  that  matter  about  the  Queen  and  our  little  play, 
'Frozen  Deep.'  We  had  played  it  many  times  with  con- 
siderable success,  when  the  Queen  heard  of  it  and 
Colonel  Phipps  ( ?)  called  upon  me  and  said  he  wished 
the  Queen  could  see  the  play.  Was  there  no  hall  which 
would  be  appropriate  for  the  occasion  ?  What  did  I 
think  of  Buckingham  Palace  ?  I  replied  that  could  not 
be,  for  my  daughters  played  in  the  piece  and  I  had  never 
asked  myself  to  be  presented  at  court  nor  had  I  ever 
taken  the  proper  steps  to  introduce  them  there,  and  of 
course  they  could  not  go  as  amateur  performers  where 
they  had  never  been  as  visitors.  This  seemed  to  trouble 
him  a  good  deal,  so  I  said  I  would  find  some  hall  which 
would  be  appropriate  for  the  purpose  and  would  ap- 
point an  evening,  which  I  did  immediately,  taking  the 
(Jallery  of  Illustration  and  having  it  fitted  up  for  the 
purpose.  I  then  drew  up  a  list  of  the  company,  chiefly 
of  artists,  literary  and  scientific  men,  and  interesting 
ladies,  which  I  caused  to  be  submitted  to  the  Queen, 
begging  her  to  reject  or  add  as  she  thought  proper,  set- 
ting aside  forty  seats  for  the  royal  party.  The  whole 
thing  went  off  finely  until  after  the  first  play  was  over, 
when  the  Queen  sent  round  a  request  that  I  would  come 


TAVISTOCK  HOUSE  THEATRE. 

UNDER  THE  MANAGEMENT  OF  MR.  CHARLES  DICKENS. 

Ok  Tuet/th  Night,  Turtday,  January  dth,  1857,  at  a  (juAiiTEn  defobe  8  o'clock.  Kill  be pramltd 
AN    ENTIRELY    NEW 

ROMANTIC  DRAMA,  IN  THREE  ACTS,  BY  MU.  WII.KIE  COLLINS. 

THE    FROZEN    DEEP. 

Tht  Jfachintry  and  I'ntpertia  by  Mr.  Ibelasd,  of  the  Theatre  Royal,  Addphi.      The  Vretiei  \y  Messrs.  NAinAS, 
of  Titchboume  Street,  JIaymaiket.    Perruquicr,  Mr.  Wilson,  of  the  Strand. 

THE  PROLOGUE  WILL  DE  DELIVERED  BY  MR.  JOUN'  FORSTER. 

CAVTATH  EUSVlomil,  of  The  Sea  Mew        ....    Jin.  Edivard  Piaorr. 

CAPTAIN  HELDINO,o/'«e  ir.inrffrcr Mr.  Alfred  Dickens. 

LIEUTENANT  CRAYFORD  ........    Mr.  Mark  Lemon. 

FRANK  ALbERSLEY Mr.  Wilkie  Collins. 

RICHARD  WARDOUR Mr.  Ciurles  Dickens. 

LIEUTENANT  STEVENTON Mr.  Youno  Charles. 

JOHN  AVANT,  Shipt  Cook Mr.  Auoustcs  Eoo,  A.R.A. 

BATESON)      „        ,-,,£,,,.„,  (Mr.  EiiwARD  Hooartii. 

DARKER   I     ^"^  "-^  ^''^  ''"  ''"'■'  '''"''''        •        •        •     •  }  Mr.  Frederick  Evans. 

(Officers  and  Crews  of  Thc  Sea  Mew  and  Wanderer.) 

MRS.  STEVENTON Miss  Helen. 

ROSE  EBSWORTH JIiss  Kate. 

LUCY  CRAYFORD Miss  Hogarth. 

CLARA  BURNHAM Miss  Marv. 

NURSE  ESTHER Mrs.  Wills. 

MAID Miss  Martha. 

THE  SCENERY  AND  SCENIC  EFFECTS  OF  THE  FIRST  ACT,  BY  MR.  TELBIN. 

THE  SCENERY  AND  SCENIC  EFFECTS  OF  THE  SECOND  AND  THIRD  ACTS,  BY  Mr.  STANFIELD,  R.A. 

ASSISTED  BY  MR.  DANSON. 

THE  ACr-DROP,  ALSO  BY  Mr.  STANFIELD,  B.A. 


AT    THE    END    OF    THE    PLAY,    HALF-AN-HOUR    FOR    REFRESHMENT. 


To  Conclude  Willi  Mob.  iNcuoALD'a  Fsrcc,  in  T«o  Acti,  of 

ANIMAL    MAGNETISM. 

(THE   SCENE   LS   LAID   m   SEVILLE. ) 

THE  DOCTOR Mr.  CnAnLES  Dickess. 

PEDRILLO Mr.  Mark  LF.aoN. 

THE  MAIIQOIS  DE  LA  OUARDIA Mr.  YoLiia  Charles. 

CREGORIO Mr.  Wilkie  Colllns. 

CAMILLA Mira  Kate. 

JACINTHA Miss  Hooarth. 

Musical  Compoaer  and  Conductor  of  the  Orchestra— Mr.  FRANCESCO  BERGER,  who  will 
preside  at  the  Piano. 

CARRIAGES  MAY  DE  ORDERED  AT  IIALP.PAST  ELEVEN, 
000    SAVE    THE    QUEEN! 


FACSIMILE  PLAY-BILL  OF  "THE  FROZEN  DEEP,"  WITH  DICKENS  AS 
ACTOR-MANAGER 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  189 

and  see  her.  This  was  considered  an  act  of  immense  con- 
descension and  kindness  on  her  part,  and  the  Httle  party 
behind  the  scenes  were  delighted.  Unfortunately,  I  had 
just  prepared  myself  for  the  farce  which  was  to  follow 
and  was  already  standing  in  motley  dress  with  a  red 
nose.  I  knew  I  could  not  appear  in  that  plight,  so  I 
begged  leave  to  be  excused  on  that  ground.  However, 
that  was  forgiven  and  all  passed  off  well,  although  the 
large  expense  of  the  whole  thing  of  course  fell  on  me, 
which  amounted  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hun- 
dred pounds.  Several  years  after,  when  Prince  Albert 
died,  the  Queen  sent  to  me  for  a  copy  of  the  play.  I  told 
Colonel  Phipps  the  play  had  never  been  printed  and 
was  the  property  of  a  gentleman,  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins. 
Then  would  I  have  it  copied  ?  So  1  had  a  very  beautiful 
copy  made  and  bound  in  the  most  perfect  manner,  and 
presented  to  her  Majesty.  Whereupon  the  Princess  of 
Prussia,  seeing  this,  asked  for  another  for  herself.  I  said 
I  would  again  ask  the  permission  of  Mr.  Collins  and 
again  I  had  a  beautiful  with  copy  made  great  labor. 
Then  the  Queen  sent  to  ask  the  price  of  the  books.  I 
sent  word  that  my  friend,  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins,  was  a 
gentleman  who  would,  I  was  sure,  hear  to  nothing  of  the 
kind  and  begged  her  acceptance  of  the  volumes. "  "How 
has  the  Queen  shown  her  gratitude  for  such  favors  ?"  I 
said.  "We  have  never  heard  anything  more  from  her 
since  that  time."  Good  Mr.  Dolby  said  quietly,  "You 
know  in  England  we  call  her  'Her  Ungracious  Maj- 
esty.'" Certainly  one  would  not  have  believed  it  pos- 
sible for  even  a  queen's  nature  to  have    become   so 


I90  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

hardened  as  this  to  the  kindly  acts  of  any  human  being, 
not  to  speak  of  the  efforts  of  one  of  her  most  noble  sub- 
jects and  perhaps  the  greatest  genius  of  our  time. 

If  any  reader  wishes  to  follow  the  further  course  of 
the  friendship  between  Dickens  and  the  Fieldses,  he  has 
only  to  turn  to  "Yesterdays  with  Authors,"  in  which 
many  letters  written  by  Dickens  after  April,  1868,  are 
quoted,  and  many  remembrances  of  their  intercourse 
when  the  Fieldses  visited  England  in  1869,  the  year 
before  Dickens's  death,  are  presented.  Here  it  will 
suffice  to  quote  one  out  of  several  passages  in  Mrs. 
Fields's  diary  relating  to  Dickens,  and  to  bring  to  light 
a  single  characteristic  little  note  from  Dickens,  not 
hitherto  printed. 

On  Wednesday,  May  12,  1869,  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  of 
Dickens :  — 

He  drove  us  through  the  Parks  in  the  fashionable 
afternoon  hour  and  afterward  to  dine  with  him  at  the 
St.  James,  where  Fcchter  and  Dolby  were  the  only  out- 
siders. Mrs.  Collins  was  like  one  of  Stothard's  pictures. 
I  felt  this  more  even  after  refreshing  my  memory  of 
Stothard's  coloring  at  the  Kensington  Museum  yester- 
day. C.  D.  told  me  that  the  book  of  all  others  which  he 
read  perpetually  and  of  which  he  never  tired,  the  book 
which  always  appeared  more  imaginative  in  proportion 
to  the  fresh  imagination  he  brings  to  it,  a  book  for  in- 
exhaustiveness  to  be  placed  before  every  other  book,  is 
Carlyle's  "French  Revolution."    When  he  was  writing 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  191 

"A  Tale  of  Two  Cities,"  he  asked  Carlyle  if  he  might 
see  some  book  to  which  he  referred  in  his  history. 
Whereat  Carlyle  sent  down  to  him  all  his  books,  and 
Dickens  read  them  faithfully  ;  but  the  more  he  read  the 
more  he  was  astounded  to  find  how  the  facts  but  passed 
through  the  alembic  of  Carlyle's  brain  and  had  come 
out  and  fitted  themselves  each  as  a  part  of  the  one  great 
whole,  making  a  compact  result,  indestructible  and  un- 
rivalled, and  he  always  found  himself  turning  away 
from  the  books  of  reference  and  rereading  this  marvel- 
lous new  growth  from  those  dry  bones  with  renewed 
wonder. 

The  note  from  Dickens  read  :  — 

Gad's  Hill  Place 
HiGHAM  BY  Rochester,  Kent 
Wednesday  Sixth  October^  1869 

Mv  DEAR  Fields  : — 

Delighted  to  enjoy  the  prospect  of  seeing  you  and 
yours  on  Saturday.  Wish  you  had  been  at  Birming- 
ham. Wish  you  were  not  going  home.  Wish  you  had 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Byron  matter.^  Wish  Mrs. 
Stowe  was  in  the  pillory.  Wish  Fechter  had  gone  over 
when  he  ought.  Wish  he  may  not  go  under  when  he 
ought  n't. 

With  love, 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

1  Mrs.  Stowe's  unhappily  historic  article  on  "The  True  Story  of  Lady 
Byron's  Life"  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  September,  1869. 


J^igbam  bj  |la£btster,JKtnt. 


fca.<^. 


pU<^^^^(,f^2jl^^^^ji^,Q^^^ 


Facsimile  note  Jrom  Dickens  to  FieUs 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  193 

Among  the  papers  preserved  by  Mrs.  Fields  there  are, 
besides  the  manuscript  letters  of  Dickens  himself,  many- 
letters  written  after  his  death  by  his  sister-in-law.  Miss 
Georgina  Hogarth.  From  bits  of  these,  and  especially 
from  a  letter  written  by  Dickens's  daughter,  while  his 
death  was  still  a  poignant  grief,  the  affection  in  which 
he  was  held  in  his  own  household  is  touchingly  imaged 
forth. 

"All  the  Old  World,"  wrote  Miss  Dickens,  "all  the 
New  World  loved  him.  He  never  had  anything  to  do 
with  a  living  soul  without  attaching  them  to  him.  If 
strangers  could  so  love  him,  you  can  tell  a  little  what  he 
must  have  been  to  his  own  flesh  and  blood.  It  is  a 
glorious  inheritance  to  have  such  blood  flowing  in  one's 
veins.   I  'm  so  glad  I  have  never  changed  my  name."     I 

From  one  of  Miss  Hogarth's  letters  a  single  passage 
may  be  taken,  since  it  adds  something  of  first-hand 
knowledge  to  the  accessible  facts  about  one  piece  of 
Dickens's  writing  which  —  in  so  far  as  the  editor  of 
these  pages  is  aware  —  has  never  seen  the  light  of 
print.  This  letter  was  written  in  the  September  after 
Dickens's  death : 

"I  must  now  tell  you  about  the  beautiful  little  New 
Testament  which  he  wrote  for  his  children.  I  am  sorry 
to  say  it  is  never  to  be  published.  It  happens  that  he  ex- 
pressed that  decided  determination  only  last  autumn  to 
me,  so  we  have  no  alternative.  He  wrote  it  years  ago 
when  his  elder  children  were  quite  little.  It  is  about 
sixteen  short  chapters,  chiefly  adapted  from  St.  Luke's 
Gospel,  most  beautiful,  most  touching,  most  simple,  as 


194  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

such  a  narrative  should  be.  He  never  would  have  it 
printed  and  I  used  to  read  it  to  the  little  boys  in  MS. 
before  they  were  old  enough  to  read  ivriting  themselves. 
When  Charley's  children  became  old  enough  to  have 
this  kind  of  teaching,  I  promised  Bessy  (his  wife)  that 
I  would  make  her  a  copy  of  this  History,  and  I  deter- 
mined to  do  it  as  a  Christmas  Gift  for  her  last  year,  but 
before  I  began  my  copy  I  asked  Charles  if  he  did  not 
think  it  would  be  well  for  him  to  have  it  printed,  at  all 
events  for  private  circulation,  if  he  would  not  publish  it 
(though  I  think  it  is  a  pity  he  would  never  do  that !). 
He  said  he  would  look  over  the  MS,  and  take  a  week  or 
two  to  consider.  At  the  end  of  the  time  he  gave  it  back 
to  me  and  said  he  had  decided  never  to  publish  it  —  or 
even  have  it  privately  printed.  He  said  I  might  make  a 
copy  for  Bessy,  or  for  any  one  of  his  children,  but  for  no 
one  else,  and  that  he  also  begged  that  we  would  never 
even  lend  the  MS,,  or  a  copy  of  it,  to  any  one  to  take 
out  of  the  house ;  so  there  is  no  doubt  about  his  strong 
feeling  on  the  subject,  and  we  must  obey  it.  I  made  my 
copy  for  Bessy  and  gave  it  to  her  last  Christmas.  After 
his  death  the  original  MS.  became  rnine.  .As  it  was  never 
published,  of  course  it  did  not  count  as  one  of  Mr. 
Forster's  MSS.,  and  therefore  it  was  one  of  his  private 
papers,  which  were  left  to  me.  So  I  gave  it  at  once  to 
Mamie,  who  was,  I  thought,  the  most  natural  and 
proper  possessor  of  it,  as  being  his  eldest  daughter.  You 
must  come  to  England  and  read  it,  dear  Friend !  as  we 
must  not  send  it  to  you  !  We  should  be  glad  to  see  you 
and  to  show  it  to  you  and  Mr.  Fields  in  our  own  house." 


WITH  DICKENS  IN  AMERICA  195 

Miss  Hogarth  must  have  known  full  well  that,  if  this 
manuscript  Gospel  according  to  Charles  Dickens  was 
to  be  shown  to  anybody  outside  his  immediate  circle, 
he  himself  would  have  chosen  the  Charles  Street  friends 
from  what  he  called  —  to  them  —  his  "native  Boston." 


VI 

STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS 

Had  anyone  crossed  the  Charles  Street  threshold  of 
the  Fieldses  with  the  expectation  of  encountering  within 
none  but  the  New  England  Augustans,  he  would  soon 
have  found  himself  happily  disillusioned,  even  at  a 
time  when  there  was  no  Dickens  in  Boston.  As  it  was 
in  reality,  so  must  it  be  in  these  pages,  if  they  are  to  ful- 
fill their  purpose  of  restoring  a  vanished  scene,  the 
variety  of  which  must  indeed  be  counted  among  its 
most  distinctive  characteristics.  The  pages  that  follow 
will  accordingly  serve  to  illustrate  the  familiar  fact  that 
the  pudding  of  a  "family  party"  is  often  rendered  the 
more  acceptable  by  the  introduction  of  a  few  plums  not 
plucked  from  the  domestic  tree. 

Mrs.  Fields  once  noted  in  her  diary  the  circumstance 
that,  when  her  husband  came  to  Boston  from  Ports- 
mouth at  the  age  of  fourteen,  and  began  to  work  as  a 
"boy"  in  the  bookshop  of  Carter  &  Hcndee,  the  second 
of  these  employers  had  a  box  at  the  theatre  and,  to  keep 
his  young  employees  happy,  used  constantly  to  ask  one 
or  more  of  them  to  see  a  play  in  his  company.  Thus 
enabled  in  his  youth  to  see  such  actors  as  the  elder 
Booth,  Fanny  Kemble  and  her  father,  and  many  others 
of  the  best  players  to  be  seen  in  America  at  the  time, 
Fields  acquired  a  love  of  the  theatre  and  of  stage  folk 
which  stood  him  in  good  stead  throughout  his  life.    A 


JAMES  T.  FIELDS  AT  FIFTEEN 
From  a  drawing  by  a  French  painter 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  197 

certain  exuberance  In  his  own  nature  must  have  sought 
a  response  in  social  contacts  other  than  those  of  the 
straiter  sect  of  his  local  contemporaries.  In  men  and 
women  of  the  stage,  in  authors  from  beyond  the  com- 
pass of  the  local  horizon,  writers  with  whom  he  formed 
relations  in  his  double  capacity  of  editor  and  publisher, 
in  artists  and  public  men  outside  the  immediate  "liter- 
ary" circle  of  Boston,  Fields  took  an  unceasing  delight, 
shared  by  his  wife,  and  still  communicable  through  her 
journals. 

From  their  pages,  then,  I  propose  to  assemble  here  a 
group  of  passages  relating  first  to  stage  folk,  and  then 
to  others,  and,  since  these  records  so  largely  explain 
themselves,  to  burden  them  as  lightly  as  possible  with 
explanations.  Slender  as  certain  of  the  entries  are,  each 
contributes  something  to  a  recovery  of  the  time  and  of 
the  persons  that  graced  it. 


Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  says  his  biographer,  used  to 
declare  in  his  later  years,  "Though  I  am  not  genuine 
Boston,  I  am  Boston-plated."  His  intimate  relation 
with  Boston  began  in  1865,  through  the  publication  of 
a  "Blue  and  Gold"  edition  of  his  poems  by  the  firm 
of  which  Fields  was  a  member,  and  the  beginning  of 
his  editorship  of  "Every  Saturday,"  an  illustrated 
journal  issued  under  the  same  auspices.  His  range  of 
acquaintance  before  that  time  was  such  that  when  the 
"plating"  process  began,  —  it  was  really  more  like  a 
transmutation  of  metals,  —  he  sometimes  served  as  a 


198  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

sympathetic  link  between  his  new  Boston  and  his  old 
New  York.  It  was  in  New  York,  only  a  few  weeks 
after  the  assassination  of  Lincoln,  that  Aldrich  appears 
in  the  diary,  fresh  from  seeing  his  friend,  Edwin 
Booth. 

May  3,  1865.  —  An  hour  before  we  went  to  tea, 
Aldrich  came  to  see  us.  He  said  he  and  Launt  Thomp- 
son were  staying  with  Edwin  Booth  alternate  nights 
during  this  season  of  sorrow;  that  it  was  "all  right 
between  himself  and  the  lady  he  was  about  to  marry." 
Then  he  described  to  us  the  first  night  while  Booth  was 
plunged  in  agony.  He  said  the  gas  was  left  burning  low 
and  the  bed  stood  in  the  corner,  just  where  he  lay  sleep- 
less, looking  at  a  fearfully  good  crayon  portrait  of  Wilkes 
Booth  which  glared  at  him  over  the  gas.  Launt  Thomp- 
son started  with  the  mother  from  New  York  for  Phila- 
delphia, where  she  was  going  to  join  her  daughter  the 
day  that  John  Wilkes  was  shot,  and  an  extra  containing 
the  news  was  brought  them  by  a  newsboy  as  they 
stepped  on  the  ferry-boat.  The  old  woman  would  have 
the  paper.  "He  was  her  'Johnny'  after  all,"  said  T.  B.  A. 

Friday.  —  Have  seen  a  lady  who  knows  the  person  to 
whom  Booth  is  engaged  —  said  that  her  letter  telling 
him  she  was  true  passed  his  letter  of  relinquishment  on 
its  way  to  Philadelphia.  She  thinks  these  two  women 
have  saved  Booth.  "I  have  been  loved  too  well,"  he 
said  once.  .  .  . 

Aldrich  said  we  should  not  have  been  more  aston- 
ished to  hear  he  himself  had  done  the  terrible  deed  than 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  199 

he  was  to  know  Wilkes  Booth  had  done  it.  "He  was  so 
gentle,  gentler  than  I,  and  very  handsome  —  a  slight, 
beautiful  figure,"  and  (as  he  described  the  face,  it  was 
the  Greek  Antinous  kind  of  beauty  there)  I  could  not 
but  reflect  how  the  deed  may  deform  the  man.  Nobody 
said  he  was  beautiful  after  he  was  dead,  but  they  laid  a 
cloth  upon  the  face  and  said  how  dreadful.  It  has  been 
a  strange  experience  to  come  among  the  people  who 
know  the  family.  I  hoped  I  should  be  spared  this,  but 
the  soul  of  good  in  things  evil  God  means  we  should  all 
see. 

Sunday^  May  7.  —  A  radiant  day.  Went  to  hear  Dr. 
Bellows  —  a  grand  discourse.  After  service  sat  in  his 
drawing-room  and  talked  and  then  walked  together.  .  .  . 
He  too  has  been  to  see  Edwin  Booth.  The  poor  fellow 
said  to  him,  "Ah  !  if  it  had  been  a  fellow  like  myself 
who  had  done  this  dreadful  deed,  the  world  would  not 
have  wondered  —  but  Johnny  ! !" 

Wednesday^  January  3,  1866.  —  Dined  with  the 
Grahams  and  went  to  see  Booth  upon  the  occasion  of 
his  reappearance.  The  unmoved  sadness  of  the  young 
man  and  the  unceasing  plaudits  of  the  house,  half  filled 
with  his  friends,  were  impressive  and  made  it  an  oc- 
casion not  to  be  forgotten. 

September  23,  1866.  —  Edwin  Booth  and  the  Al- 
driches  came  to  tea ;  also  Tom  Beal  and  Professor 
Sterry  Hunt  of  Montreal,  the  latter  late.  Booth  came 
in  the  twilight  while  a  magnificent  red  and  purple  and 
gold  sunset  was  staining  the  bay.  The  schooners  an- 
chored just  off  shore  had  already  lighted  their  lanterns 


200  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

and  swung  them  in  the  rigging,  and  the  full  moon  cast 
a  silver  sheen  over  the  scene.  I  hear  he  passes  every 
Sunday  morning  while  here  at  the  grave  of  his  wife  in 
Mt.  Auburn.  He  seems  deeply  saddened.  He  was  very 
pleasant,  however,  and  ready  to  talk,  and  gave  amusing 
imitations  —  in  particular  of  his  black  boy,  Jan,  who 
possesses,  he  says,  the  one  accomplishment  of  forget- 
ting everything  he  ought  to  remember.  One  day  a  man 
with  a  deep  tragic  voice,  "  Forrestian,"  he  said,  came  to 
him  with  letters  of  introduction  asking  Mr.  Booth  to 
assist  him  as  he  was  about  to  go  to  England.  Mr.  B. 
told  him  he  knew  no  one  in  England  and  could  do  noth- 
ing for  him,  he  was  sorry.  If  he  ever  found  it  possible  to 
do  him  a  service  he  would  with  pleasure.  With  that  Mr. 
B.  turned,  —  they  were  in  the  vestibule  of  the  theatre  — 
and  entered  the  box-office  to  speak  to  someone  there; 
immediately  he  heard  the  deep  voice  addressing  Jan 
with  "You  arc  with  Mr.  Booth."  "Yes,"  responded  Jan 
with  real  negro  accent,  "I  'm  wid  Mr.  Booth."  "In 
what  capacity  —  arc  you  studying  ?"  "  Yaas,"  returned 
Jan,  unblushingly,  "  I 'se  studyin'."  "What  are  you 
upon  now?"  "Oh,  Richelieu,  Hamlet,  an'  a  few  of 
dese  yer."  "  Ah,  I  should  be  pleased  to  enter  into  corre- 
spondence with  you  while  I  am  abroad.  Would  you  have 
any  objections?"  "Oh,  no,  no  objection,  no  objection 
at  all."  "Thank  you,  sir;  good-day,  sir."  With  that 
they  parted  and  Jan  came  with  his  mouth  stretched 
wide  with  laughter.  "Massa,  what  is  'correspond'? 
I  told  him  I  'd  correspond,  what  'd  he  mean,  corre- 
spond ?"   Then  Jan,  convulsed  with  his  joke,  roared  and 


^^/^h^^u^ 


^^U^^t^^^^^ 


Facsimile  note  from  Booth  to  Mrs.  Fields 


202  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

roared  again.  They  are  surely  a  merry  race,  but  pro- 
voking enough  sometimes.  They  are  capable  of  real 
attachments,  however;  this  man  has  been  several 
times  dismissed  but  will  not  go.  Booth  told  everything 
very  dramatically,  but  I  was  especially  struck  with  his 
description  of  a  man  travelling  with  two  shaggy  terrier 
pups  in  the  cars.  He  had  them  in  a  basket  and  hung 
them  up  over  his  head  and  then  composed  himself  to 
sleep.  Waking  up  half  an  hour  later,  he  observed  a  man 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  car,  his  eyes  starting  from 
his  head  and  the  very  picture  of  dismay,  as  if  a  demon 
were  looking  at  him.  The  owner  of  the  pups,  following 
the  direction  of  the  man's  eyes,  looked  up  and  saw  the 
two  pups  had  their  heads  out  of  the  basket.  He  quietly 
made  a  sign  for  them  to  go  back  and  they  disappeared. 
The  man's  gaze  did  not  apparently  slacken,  however, 
but  in  a  moment  became  still  more  horrified  when  the 
pups  again  looked  out.  "What  *s  the  matter  ?"  said  the 
owner.  "What  are  those  ?"  said  the  man,  pointing  with 
trembling  finger;  "pray  excuse  mc,  but  I  have  been  on 
a  spree  and  I  thought  they  were  demons."  He  intro- 
duced the  subject  o\  the  stage  and  talked  of  points  in 
"Hamlet,"  which  he  had  made  for  the  first  time,  but 
occasionally  through  accident  had  omitted.  The  next 
day  he  will  be  sure  to  be  asked  by  letter  or  newspaper 
why  he  omits  certain  points  which  would  be  so  excel- 
lent to  make,  l/ie  writer  thinks.  He  has  had  a  life  of 
strange  vicissitudes,  as  almost  all  actors.  He  referred 
last  night  to  his  frequent  travels  during  childhood  over 
the  Allcghanics  with  his  father,  of  long  nights  spent  in 


■ 

■k      J/KjK^Kt^Jnl 

»;j 

m 

% 

BfllrBdn^U'' 

1^^  ^L^^^^^^^^Br 

BOOTH  Ay  HAMLET 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  203 

this  kind  of  travel ;  and  once  in  Nevada  he  walked  fifty 
miles  chiefly  through  snow.  "Why?"  said  Lilian.  "Be- 
cause I  was  hard  up,  Lily,"  he  continued ;  "I  walked  it 
too  in  stage  boots  which  were  too  tight  —  it  was  mis- 
ery." .  .  . 

They  had  all  gone  by  half-past  ten,  but  we  lay  long 
awake  thinking  over  poor  Booth  and  his  strange  sad 
fortune.  Hamlet,  indeed! — although  Forceythe  Will- 
son  says,  "I  have  been  to  see  Mr.  Hamlet  play  Booth." 
Yes,  perhaps  when  he  is  playing  it  for  the  400th  time 
with  a  bad  cold,  it  may  seem  so  ;  indeed  I  found  it  dull- 
ish myself,  or  his  part,  I  mean,  the  other  night ;  but  he 
did  play  it  once  —  the  night  ot  his  reappearance  in  New 
York. 

May  18,  1869.  —  Last  Sunday  evening  Booth,  Al- 
drich  and  his  wife  and  sister.  Dr.  Holmes  and  Amelia 
and  Launt  Thompson,  Leslie  and  ourselves  took  tea 
here  together.  In  the  evening  came  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Emer- 
son. We  did  have  a  rare  and  delightful  symposium. 
Booth  talked  little  as  usual,  and  the  next  night  went 
round  to  Aldrich's  and  took  himself  off  as  he  behaves  in 
company ! !  Nevertheless  he  was  glad  to  see  Holmes, 
though  every  time  Dr.  H.  addressed  him  across  the  table 
he  seemed  to  receive  an  electric  shock. 


A  chance  meeting  between  William  Warren  and 
Fields  in  a  lane  at  the  seaside  Manchester  is  re- 
corded, with  their  talk,  in  the  diary  as  early  as  1865. 
Two  entries  in  1872  have  to  do  with  Jefferson,  first 


204  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

alone  and  then  with  Warren.  The  friendship  with 
Jefferson,  begun  so  long  ago,  was  continued  until  his 
death. 

Tuesday,  March  i8,  1872.  —  Left  Boston  for  a  short 
trip  to  New  York.  Jefferson  the  actor,  famous  through- 
out the  world  for  his  impersonation  of  "Rip  Van 
WinkJe,"  was  on  the  train  and  finding  us  out  (or  J. 
him),  came  to  our  compartment  car  to  pass  the  day. 
He  talked  without  cessation  and  without  effort.  He 
described  his  sudden  disease  of  the  eyes  quite  bravely 
and  simply,  from  the  use  of  too  much  whiskey.  He  said 
the  newspapers  had  said  it  was  the  gas,  and  many  other 
reasons  had  been  assigned  first  and  last;  but  he  firmly 
believed  there  was  no  other  reason  than  too  much 
whiskey.  He  had  taken  the  habit  —  when  he  was  some- 
what below  his  ordinary  physical  and  mental  condition 
in  the  evening  and  wished  to  rise  to  the  proper  point 
and  "carry  the  audience"  —  of  taking  a  small  glass  of 
whiskey.  This  glass  was  after  a  time  made  two,  and 
even  three  or  four.  Finally  he  was  stricken  down  by  a 
trouble  of  the  eyes  which  threatened  the  entire  extinc- 
tion of  sight.  His  physician  at  once  suggested  that  un- 
natural use  of  stimulants  was  the  cause,  of  which  he 
himself  is  now  entirely  convinced  and  no  longer  touches 
anything  stronger  than  claret.  He  has  played  to  a 
larger  variety  of  audiences  probably  than  almost  any 
other  great  actor.  The  immense  applause  he  received 
in  England,  where  he  played  170  consecutive  nights  at 
the  Adelphi  in   London,  always   as  "Rip,"   has  only 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  205 

served  to  make  him  more  modest,  it  would  seem,  more 
desirous  to  uphold  himself  artistically.  He  gave  us  a 
hint  of  his  taste  for  fishing  and  described  his  trout-rais- 
ing establishment  in  Jersey ;  very  curious  and  wonder- 
ful it  was.  Nature  preserves  only  one  in  a  hundred  of 
the  eggs  of  trout  to  come  to  maturity.  Mr.  Jefferson 
in  his  pond  is  able  to  raise  85  out  of  100.  There  seems 
no  delight  to  him  so  great  as  that  of  sitting  beside  a 
stream  on  a  sunny  day,  line  in  hand. 

Talking  of  the  everlasting  repetition  of  "Rip,"  he 
says  he  should  be  thankful  to  rest  himself  with  another 
play,  but  this  has  been  a  growth  and  it  would  be  a  dar- 
ing thing  for  him  to  attempt  anything  new  with  a  public 
who  would  always  compare  him  with  himself  in  this  play 
which  is  the  result  of  years  of  his  best  thought  and 
strength.  I  think  myself,  if  he  were  quite  v/ell  he  would 
be  almost  sure  to  attempt  something  else.  He  told  us 
several  stories  very  dramatically.  He  is  an  odd,  care- 
lessly dressed  little  mortal,  a  cross  between  Charles 
Lamb  and  Grimaldi,  but  we  have  seldom  passed  a  more 
delightful  day  of  talk  than  with  him.  The  hours  abso- 
lutely fled  away. 

Wednesday ,  May  22,  1872.  —  Mr.  Longfellow,  Dr. 
Holmes,  and  Jefferson  and  Warren,  the  two  first  come- 
dians of  our  time,  dined  here.  The  hour  was  three 
o'clock,  to  accommodate  the  two  professional  gentlemen. 
The  hours  until  three,  with  the  exception  of  two  visits 
(Miss  Sara  Clarke  and  Miss  Wainwright  in  spite  of  say- 
ing "engaged"),  were  occupied  in  making  preparations 
for  the  little  feast.  I  mean  the  hours  after  breakfast  until 


2o6  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

time  to  dress.  (Of  hours  before  breakfast  I  have  now-a- 
days  nothing  to  say.  I  am  not  strong  enough  to  do  any- 
thing early,  but  country  life  this  summer  is  to  change  all 
that.)  Mr.  Jefferson  and  Mr.  Warren  arrived  first. 
Finding  much  to  interest  them  in  the  pictures  of  our 
lower  room,  they  lingered  there  a  few  moments  before 
coming  to  the  library,  when  we  talked  of  Marney's  pic- 
tures (Mr.  J.  owns  some  of  his  water-colors)  and  looked 
about  at  others.  Soon  Longfellow  came  with  Jamie. 
He  said  he  felt  like  one  on  a  journey.  He  left  home  early 
in  the  morning,  had  been  sight-seeing  in  Boston  all  day, 
was  to  dine  and  go  to  the  theatre  with  us  afterward. 

He  asked  Mr,  Warren  why  a  Mr.  Inglis  was  selling  his 
fine  library  and  pictures  —  a  question  nobody  had  been 
able  to  solve.  Mr.  Inglis  is,  however,  in  some  way  con- 
nected with  the  stage,  and  Warren  told  us  it  was  because 
he  had  been  arrested  with  Mr.  Harvey  Parker  and 
others  and  condemned  to  be  thrown  in  the  House  of 
Correction,  for  selling  liquor.  His  money  protected  him 
from  the  rigor  of  the  law,  but  the  disgrace  remained.  His 
children  felt  it  much  and  he  was  going  to  Europe  at 
least  for  a  season.  We  could  not  help  feeling  the  injus- 
tice of  this  when  we  remembered  the  myriad  liijuor 
shops  for  the  poor  all  over  the  town,  with  which  no  one 
interferes. 

Mr.  Jefferson  was  deeply  interested  in  our  pictures  of 
the  players  by  Zanafois.  Dr.  Holmes  came  in,  talked  a 
littJe  at  my  suggestion  about  Anne  Whitney's  bust  of 
Keats,  which  he  appears  to  know  nothing  about  artis- 
tically (I  observed  the  same  lack  of  knowledge  in  Emer- 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  207 

son),  but  he  criticised  the  hair.  He  said  he  supposed 
nothing  was  known  about  Keats's  hair,  so  it  might  as 
well  be  one  way  as  another.  I  told  him  on  the  contrary 
I  owned  some  of  it ;  whereat  I  got  it  out,  and  he  went 
off  in  a  little  episode  about  an  essay  which  he  had  some- 
times thought  of  writing  about  hair.  He  has  a  machine 
by  which  the  size  of  a  hair  can  be  measured  and  re- 
corded. This  he  would  like  to  use,  and  make  a  note  of 
comparison  between  the  hairs  of  "G.  W. "  (as  he  laugh- 
ingly called  Washington),  Jefferson,  Milton,  and  other 
celebrities  of  the  earth.  He  thought  it  might  be  very 
curious  to  discover  the  difference  in  quality. 

We  were  soon  seated  at  the  table  (only  six  all  told) 
where  the  conversation  never  flagged.  Longfellow  prop- 
erly began  it  by  saying  he  thought  Mr.  Charles  Mathews 
was  entirely  unjust  to  Mr.  Forrest  as  King  Lear.  He 
considered  Mr.  Forrest's  rendering  of  the  part,  and  he 
sat  through  the  whole,  as  fine  and  close  to  nature.  He 
could  not  understand  Mr.  Mathews's  underrating  it  as 
he  did.  Of  course  the  other  two  gentlemen  could  say 
nothing  more  than  the  difficulty  Mr.  Mathews  from 
his  nature  would  have  in  estimating  at  its  proper  worth 
anything  Mr.  For.rest  might  do,  their  idea  of  Art  being 
so  dissimilar.  Here  arose  the  question  if  one  actor  was  a 
good  judge  of  another.  Jefferson  said  he  sometimes 
thought  actors  very  bad  judges  —  indeed  he  preferred 
to  be  judged  by  an  audience  inspired  by  feeUng  rather 
than  by  one  intellectually  critical. 

Jefferson  has  a  clear  blue  eye,  very  fine  and  bright 
and  sweet.   Longfellow  thinks  his  mouth  a  very  weak 


2o8  MEMORIES  OK  A  llUSl  ESS 

one,  and  certainly  his  face  is  not  impressive.  Warren 
appears  a  man  of  finer  intellect  and  more  wit.  He  had 
many  witty  things  to  say  and  his  little  tales  were  always 
dramatically  given.  Dr.  Holmes  could  not  seem  to  re- 
cover from  the  idea  that  Jefferson  had  made  a  fortune 
out  of  one  play  and  that  he  never  played  but  one.  "I 
hear,  Mr.  Jefferson,"  he  said,  when  he  first  came  in, 
"that  you  have  been  playing  the  same  play  ever  since 
you  came  here."  (He  has  been  playing  the  same  for  a 
dozen  years,  I  believe,  nearly  —  and  has  been  here  three 
weeks!)  Jefferson  could  hardly  help  laughing  as  he  as- 
sured him  that  for  the  space  of  three  weeks  he  had  given 
the  same  every  night.  Dr.  Holmes  had  a  way  at  the 
table  of  talking  of  "you  actors,"  "you  gentlemen  of  the 
stage,"  until  I  saw  Longfellow  was  quite  disturbed  at 
the  unsympathetic  unmanncrliness  of  it,  in  appearance, 
and  tried  to  talk  more  than  ever  in  a  different  strain. 

After  I  left  the  table,  which  I  did  because  I  thought 
they  might  like  to  smoke,  Jamie  sent  for  Parsons's 
poems  and  read  them  some  of  the  finest.  Of  course  the 
talk  was  wittier  and  quicker  as  the  time  came  to  sep- 
arate, but  I  cannot  report  upon  it.  The  impression  the 
two  actors  left  upon  me,  however,  was  rather  that  of 
men  who  enjoyed  coming  up  to  the  surface  to  breathe  a 
natural  air  seldom  vouchsafed  to  them  than  of  men 
sparring  with  their  wits  —  they  are  affectionate,  gentle, 
subdued  gentlemen  and  a  noble  contrast  to  the  self- 
opinionated  ignorance  which  we  often  meet  in  society. 
Dr.  Holmes  was,  however,  the  wit  of  the  occasion,  as  he 
always  is,  and  everybody  richly  enjoyed  his  sallies. 


JEFFERSON  IN  THE  BETROTHAL  SCENE  OF  "RIP  VAN  WINKLE" 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  209 

They  stayed  until  the  last  moment  —  indeed  I  do  not 
see  how  they  got  to  their  two  theatres  in  time  to  dress. 
It  must  have  been,  as  they  say  of  eggs,  a  "hard  scrab- 
ble." We  went  afterward  —  we  four  —  to  see  a  new 
actor,  Raymond,  play  "Colleen  Bawn"  at  the  Globe  — 
pretty  play,  though  very  touching  and  melodramatic, 
by  Boucicault.  I  must  confess  to  dislike  such  plays 
where  your  feelings  are  wrought  to  the  highest  pitch 
for  nothing. 


The  name  of  Fechter  is  familiar  to  the  middle-aged 
through  the  memory  of  fathers,  to  the  young  through 
that  of  grandfathers.  Readers  of  these  pages  will  recall 
that  Dickens,  soon  after  reaching  America  in  1867, 
spoke  of  him  in  terms  which  caused  Mrs.  Fields  to 
look  forward  with  confidence  to  a  new  friendship.  His 
coming  to  America  was  specifically  heralded  by  an  ar- 
ticle, "On  Mr.  Fechter's  Acting,"  contributed  by  Dick- 
ens to  the  "Atlantic  "  for  August,  1 869.  When  Fechter 
was  in  Boston,  warmly  received  as  Dickens's  friend, 
he  often  appears  in  the  journals  of  Mrs.  Fields,  in  con- 
junction with  others. 

Friday^  February  25,  1870.  —  Mr.  Fechter  came  to 
lunch  with  Mr.  Longfellow,  Mr.  Appleton,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Dorr.  He  talked  freely  about  his  Hamlet,  so  different 
from  all  other  impersonations.  His  audience  here  he 
finds  wonderfully  good,  better  than  any  other;  fine 
points  which  have  never  been  applauded  before  bring 


iio  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

out  a  round  of  applause.  On  the  whole  he  appears  to 
enjoy  new  hearers  —  does  not  understand  the  constant 
comparison  between  himself  and  Booth.  They  are  al- 
ready great  friends.  Booth  was  in  the  house  the  last 
night  of  his  performance  there ;  afterward  he  did  not 
come  to  speak  to  him,  and  Fechter  felt  it ;  but  a  letter 
came  yesterday  saying  he  was  so  observed  that  he 
slipped  away  as  soon  as  possible,  and  could  not  come  on 
Sunday  because  visitors  prevented  him.  Better  late 
than  never;  it  was  pleasant  to  Fechter  to  hear  from 
Booth  —  with  one  exception  :  he  enclosed  a  notice  from 
some  newspaper,  cutting  up  himself  horribly  and  prais- 
ing Fechter.  "Ah  !  that  won't  do;  I  shall  send  it  back 
to  him  and  tell  him  why.  We  are  totally  unlike  in  our 
Hamlets,  and  neither  should  be  praised  at  the  other's 
expense." 

Mr.  Fcthter  described  minutely  Mr.  Dickens's  at- 
tack of  paralysis  last  year,  ami,  the  year  before,  his 
prompt  appearance  in  the  box  of  the  theatre  at  the  last 
performance  of  "No  Thoroughfare,"  which  he  said  he 
should  do;  but  as  Fechter  had  not  heard  of  his  return 
from  America,  it  was  a  great  shock.  "If  it  had  been 
'  Hamlet,'  or  any  difficult  play,  I  could  i}ot  have  gone  on  ! 
He  should  not  have  done  such  a  thing."  He  told  us  a 
strange  touching  story  of  M'lle  Mars,  during  her  last 
years.  She  came  upon  the  stage  one  night  to  give  one 
of  the  youthful  parts  in  which  she  had  once  been  so 
famous.  When  she  appeared,  some  heartless  wretch 
threw  her  a  wreath  of  immortelles,  as  if  for  her  grave. 
She  was  so  shocked  that  the  drops  stood  on  her  brow. 


^:^/^ 


A   NAST  CARTOON  OF  DICKENS  AND  FECHTER 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  211 

the  rouge  fell  from  her  cheeks,  and  she  stood  motionless 
before  the  audience,  a  picture  of  age  and  misery.  She 
could  not  continue  her  part. 

He  spoke  with  intense  enthusiasm  of  Frederick 
Lemaitre,  much  as  I  have  heard  Mr.  Dickens  do.  "The 
second-class  actors  were  always  arguing  with  him  (only 
second-class  people  argue)  and  saying,  'Why  do  you 
wish  me  to  stand  here,  Frederick  ?'  *I  don't  know,'  he 
would  say,  'only  do  it.'" 

Mr.  Appleton  was  deeply  interested  in  the  fact  that 
Shakespeare  proved  himself  such  a  believer  in  ghosts, 
as  "Hamlet"  shows,  and  would  like  to  push  the  sub- 
ject farther,  Mr.  Fechter  evidently  finding  much  to  say 
on  this  topic  also.  Mr.  Longfellow  was  interested  to  ask 
about  the  Dumas,  pere  et  fih.  Mr.  Fechter  has  known 
them  well  and  has  many  queer  stories  to  tell  of  their 
relation  to  each  other.  Lefils  calls  mon  pere^  "  my  young- 
est child  born  many  years  ago,"  and  the  father  usually 
introduces  the  son  as  M.  Dumas,  mon  pere.  The  motto 
on  Fechter's  note  paper  is  very  curious  and  a  type  of  the 
man  —  *' Faiblesse  vaut  vice."  Mr.  Longfellow  spoke 
again  of  Mr.  Dickens's  restlessness,  of  his  terrible  sad- 
ness. "Yes,  yes,"  said  Fechter,  "all  his  fame  goes  for 
nothing."  .  .  . 

Jamie  is  so  weak  that  he  went  to  sleep  almost  as  soon 
as  they  were  gone.  God  knows  what  it  all  means ;  I  do 
not. 

It  is  odd  that  Fechter's  eyes  should  be  brown  after  all. 
They  look  so  light  in  the  play.  He  is  a  round  little  man, 
naturally  friendly,  spontaneous.    We  do  not  know  what 


212  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

his  life  has  been,  and  we  will  not  ask ;  that  does  not  rest 
with  us;  but  he  is  a  very  fine  artist.  His  imitation  of 
Mr.  Dickens,  as  he  sat  on  the  lawn  watching  him  at 
work,  or  as  he  joined  him  coming  from  his  desk  at  lunch- 
time  with  tears  on  his  cheek  and  a  smile  on  his  mouth, 
was  very  close  to  the  life  and  delightful. 

Mr.  Longfellow  did  not  talk  much,  not  as  much  as  the 
last  time  he  was  here,  but  he  was  lovely  and  kind.'  He 
brought  a  coin  of  the  French  Republic  which  had  been 
touched  by  French  wit,  Liherti  x  (point),  Egal'itc  x 
(point),  Fratcrmtt  x  (point).  \\\A  more  to  the  same 
effect,  without  altering  the  coin. 

Appleton  has  just  bought  a  new  Troyon,  wliich  he 
says  he  shall  lend  me  for  a  week. 

At  the  end  of  the  following  August  there  is  a  record  of 
a  talk  with  Fechter  on  the  boat  from  Boston  to  Nahant, 
where  he  and  the  Fieldses  dined  with  Longfellow, 
Dickens  had  died  in  the  June  just  past,  and  Fechter  had 
much  to  say  of  him  and  his  family  life.  "Day  by  day," 
wrote  Mrs.  Fields,  "I  am  grateful  to  think  of  him  at 
rest."  The  little  party  at  Nahant  is  described. 

•On  April  20,  1870,  Ivongfcllow  wrote  to  Fields  (Sec  Ijje  oj  Utnry  ICads- 
vaorth  Ijonfjellow^  etc.,  edited  by  Samuel  Longfellow,  III,  I48) ;  — 

"Sumc  Kngli&h  poet  has  said  or  sung: 

'At  the  close  of  the  day,  when  the  hamlet  is  still, 
And  mortals  the  sweets  of  forget  fulness  prove." 

"I  wish  Hamlet  would  be  still !  I  wish  I  coulil  prove  the  sweets  of  forgct- 
fulness !  I  wish  Fechter  would  depart  into  infinite  space,  and  'leave,  oh,  leave 
me  to  repose!'  When  will  this  disturbing  star  disappear,  and  suffer  the 
domestic  planetary  system  to  move  on  in  the  ordinary  course  and  keep  time 
with  the  old  clock  in  the  corner  ?" 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  213 

We  found  dear  Longfellow  looking  through  a  glass  to 
espy  our  approach,  and  all  his  dear  little  girls  and 
Ernest  and  his  wife  and  Appleton,  who  whisked  me 
away  from  the  dinner-table  to  his  studio  where  he 
had  some  really  good  sketches.  The  conversation  at 
table  was  half  French,  Longfellow  and  Appleton  both 
finding  it  agreeable  to  recall  the  foreign  scenes  by 
the  foreign  tongue.  But  except  a  queer  imitation  of 
John  Forster,  by  Fechter,  I  do  not  remember  any 
quotable  talk.  F.  said  Forster  always  looked  at  every- 
body as  if  regarding  their  qualifications  for  a  lunatic 
asylum  (he  is  commissioner  of  lunacy),  saying  to  him- 
self, "Well,  I'll  let  you  off  today ^  but  tomorrow  you 
must  certainly  go  and  be  shut  up."  He  describes  For- 
ster's  present  state  of  health  as  something  very  pre- 
carious and  wretched. 

November  14,  1870.  —  Monday  night  went  to  see 
Fechter  in  "Claude  Melnotte."  Longfellow  and  his 
daughter  Edith  sat  in  the  box  adjoining  ours.  It  was 
the  stage  box  where  they  were  sheltered  from  observa- 
tion ;  ours  was  the  box  next  it,  to  be  sure,  but  accessible 
to  all  eyes.  During  the  curtain  Longfellow  came  into 
our  box ;  Mrs.  Holmes  and  Mrs.  Andrew  were  with  me, 
both  plain  ladies  dressed  in  mourning.  His  advent 
caused  a  little  rustle  of  curiosity  to  ripple  over  the 
house.  Longfellow  was  never  looking  finer  than  he  is 
today.  His  white  hair  and  deep  blue  eyes  and  kind 
face  make  his  presence  a  benediction  wherever  he 
goes  —  of  such  men  one  cannot  help  feeling  what  Dr. 
Putnam   so   well   expressed   last   Sunday  in   speaking 


214  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

of  the  presence  of  our  Lord  at  a  feast.    "He  rewarded 
the   hospitality  of  his  friends  by  his  presence." 

Longfellow  brought  an  illegible  scrawl  in  his  hand 
which  Parsons  had  written  from  London  to  Lunt.  He 
told  me  also  of  having  lately  received  a  photograph 
from  Virginia  of  a  young  woman,  and  written  under  it 
were  the  words,  "What  fault  can  be  found  with  this?" 
He  said  he  thought  of  replying,  "The  fault  of  too  great 
youth."  It  certainly  could  not  be  agreeable  to  him  to 
sit  in  the  eye  of  the  audience  as  he  did  ;  but  he  was  very 
talkative  and  pleasant,  expressed  his  disappointment  at 
not  having  us  at  his  Nilsson  dinner,  but  his  family 
were  too  many  for  him ;  said  how  he  liked  her  for  her 
frankness ;  told  me  of  the  old  impressario  Garrett,  the 
Jew,  coming  without  invitation  and  certainly  without 
being  wanted  (as  it  sent  "his  children  upstairs  to 
dine");  and  then,  as  the  play  was  about  to  begin,  he 
withdrew.  He  was  much  amused  and  disgusted  by  the 
platitudes  of  the  play.  Returned  to  his  own  box,  Jamie 
said  he  laughed  immoderately  over  the  absurdities  of  it 
as  it  continued.  He  tooted  as  the  instruments  tooted 
and  spouted  as  the  second-rate  actors  spouted,  all  of 
which  was  highly  amusing  to  Edith,  who  was  weeping 
over  the  unhappy  lovers,  utterly  absorbed  in  the  play. 
Mrs.  Holmes  and  Mrs.  Andrew,  too,  were  full  of  tears, 
ami  I  found  it  no  use  attempting  to  say  anything  more 
during  the  evening. 

Fcchter  was  indeed  marvellous.  He  raised  the  play 
into  something  human,  something  exquisite  whenever 
he  was  upon  the  stage.    His  terrible  earnestness  sweeps 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  215 

the  audience  utterly  away.    But  he  is  not  the  player  for 
the  million. 

Sunday  evening^  December  11,  1870.  —  Went  to  Mr. 
Bartol's  and  met  Mr.  Collyer.  He  was  pleased  to  hear 
what  Fechter  said  of  him  Saturday  night  (by  the  by  we 
met  Fechter  at  Mrs.  Dorr's  dinner  on  Saturday),  that 
he  singled  him  out,  found  him  a  capital  audience,  and 
played  to  him.  It  was  a  fine  house  on  Saturday  and 
Fechter  played ''  Don  Caesar."  It  was  never  played  bet- 
ter. Curtis  was  there,  and  fine  company.  Fechter  was 
graceful  and  saucy  too  in  talk  at  dinner  —  just  right 
for  the  occasion. 

Monday^  December  19.  —  I  have  just  returned  from 
seeing  Fechter  in  "Ruy  Bias."  The  public  has  just 
received  the  news  that  he  is  to  leave  the  Globe  Theatre 
and  Boston  in  four  weeks.  The  result  was  an  enormous 
house,  and  the  most  fashionable  house  I  have  seen  this 
season.  He  played  with  great  fire  and  ease,  but  he  has  a 
wretched  cold  and  his  pronunciation  was  so  thick  and 
French  (as  it  is  apt  to  be  when  he  is  excited)  that  I 
could  often  hardly  catch  a  word.  But  his  audience  was 
determined  to  be  pleased  and  they  caught  and  ap- 
plauded all  his  good  points.  I  saw  but  one  dissenting 
spirit,  that  was  a  spoiled  queen  of  fashion  just  returned 
from  Europe,  who  saw  nobody  and  nothing  but  her- 
self. .  .  . 

Saturday,  January  7,  1871.  —  Dined  at  Mr.  Long- 
fellow's with  Mr.  Fechter.  The  poet  welcomed  us  with 
a  cordiality  peculiar  to  himself  and  his  children,  with  a 
simple  glad-to-see   written  over  their  faces  which  is 


2i6  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

worth  a  world  of  talk.  We  had  a  merry  table-talk  al- 
though Fechter  was  laboring  under  the  unnatural  ex- 
citement of  his  position  in  having  lost  his  season  at  the 
Globe,  broken  with  the  proprietor  Cheney  who  was  his 
friend,  and  finding  himself  without  an  engagement  for 
the  time.  Also,  so  mischance  held  the  day,  Miss  Le- 
clercq,  his  only  fit  support,  injured  herself  in  the 
afternoon  and  their  superb  audience  went  away  disap- 
pointed. However,  the  dinner  went  off  beautifully,  as  it 
always  must  with  Longfellow  at  the  helm.  There  was 
some  talk  of  poetry  and  the  drama  and  J.  amused  them 
too  with  anecdotes.  Then  we  adjourned  to  the  room  of 
Charles  the  East-India  man,  where  we  saw  many  curios- 
ities and  had  a  very  pleasant  hour  before  leaving.  Pass- 
ing through  the  dressing-room  of  our  dear  Longfellow,  I 
was  struck  with  seeing  how  like  the  house  of  a  German 
student  it  was  —  a  Gocthcan  aspect  of  simplicity  and 
largeness  everywhere  —  books  too  are  put  on  all  the 
walls.    It  is  surely  a  most  attractive  house. 

January  ij,  1871. — Today  Jamie  lunched  with 
Appleton.  We  passed  the  evening  at  Mrs.  Quincy's.  It 
is  the  great  benefit  to  Fechter,  but  in  consequence  of 
the  tickets  being  sold  unjustly  at  auction,  we  shall  not 
go.  Unhappily  there  are  rumors  about  town  that 
Fechter  is  to  be  insulted  in  the  theatre.  I  wish  I  could 
get  word  to  him.  I  shall  wait  until  J.  gets  home  and 
then  ask  him  to  drive  up  to  put  F.  on  his  guard. 

January  2j.  —  It  proved  an  unnecessary  alarm  !  The 
evening  went  off  well  enough  but  unenthusiastically, 
and  at  last  Fechter  gave  all  the  money  to  the  poor  ! 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  217 

When  Mrs.  Fields  first  met  that  representative  of 
the  once  alluring  art  of  "elocution,"  James  E.  Mur- 
doch, he  was  already  a  veteran  who  had  twice,  at 
an  interval  of  nearly  twenty  years,  retired  from  the 
stage.  Two  notes  about  him  recall  his  robust  person- 
ality. 

January  13,  1867.  —  I  never  met  James  E.  Murdoch, 
the  actor,  to  hear  any  talk  until  Sunday  night.  The 
knowledge  of  his  patriotism,  of  his  son  who  died  in  the 
war,  and  of  the  weary  miles  the  father  had  travelled  to 
comfort  the  soldiers  by  reading  to  them,  and  afterwards 
the  large  sums  of  money  he  had  given  to  the  country's 
cause  gathered  up  laboriously  night  by  night  by  public 
"readings"  —  all  this  I  had  known.  Of  course  no  intro- 
duction could  have  been  better,  yet  I  liked  the  man  even 
more  than  I  had  fancied  was  possible.  He  was  so  modest 
and  talked  in  such  a  free  generous  way,  purely  for  the 
entertainment  of  others,  I  fancied,  because  v/e  saw  he 
had  a  severe  cold  on  his  chest.  The  way  too  in  which  he 
recited  "Sheridan's  Ride"  and  anything  else  for  the 
children  which  he  thought  they  would  like  was  quite 
beautiful  to  see  in  a  man  of  his  years,  who  must  have 
had  quite  enough  of  that  kind  of  thing  to  do.  His  hobby 
is  elocution.  He  is  about  to  establish  a  school  or  col- 
lege or  something  of  that  description,  whatever  its 
honorable  title  will  be,  at  the  West  ^  (the  money  having 
been  granted  in  part  by  legislature,  the  other  half 
to  be  made   by  his  own  public  efforts)  for  the  pur- 

*  A  contemporary  definition  of  Cincinnati. 


21 8  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

pose  of  educating  speakers  and  teaching  men  and  women 
how  to  read.  He  has  known  Grant  and  Sheridan  well, 
lived  in  camp  with  them  at  the  same  mess-table,  and 
has  the  highest  opinion  of  the  patriotism  and  probity 
of  both  of  them.  There  is  no  mistake  about  one  thing. 
Mr.  Murdoch  made  himself  a  power  during  the  war, 
and  now  that  is  over  does  not  cease  to  work,  nor  does 
he  allow  himself  to  presume  upon  the  laurels  he  has 
won  nor  to  brag  of  his  own  work. 

Saturday  ryioniingy  November  i^^,  1875.  —  After  a 
western  journey,  left  for  home.  Sunday  met  James  E. 
Murdoch  in  the  cars  at  Springfield.  It  was  about  six 
o'clock  A.M.,  but  he  was  bound  for  Newton.  He  came 
in  therefore  with  us,  and  talked  delightfully  until  we 
parted.  He  is  an  old  man  but  as  full  of  nerve,  vigor,  and 
ripened  intellect  as  anyone  whom  I  have  seen.  His  talk 
of  the  stage,  of  his  disgust  for  Macready's  book,  his  dis- 
gust at  the  manner  in  which  Forrest  treated  his  wife,  his 
account  of  his  own  experiences,  when  he  was  glad  to 
play  for  ^J5  a  week,  were  deeply  interesting.  The  better 
side  of  Forrest  he  understood  and  appreciated  thor- 
oughly. 


The  hospitalities  of  Charles  Street  were  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  men  of  the  theatrical  and  kindred 
professions.  In  later  years  Miss  Ellen  Terry,  Lady 
Gregory,  and  those  other  ladies  associated  with  the 
stage  who  so  surely  found  their  way  to  Mrs.  Fields's 
door  when  they  visited  Boston,  were  but  carrying  on  the 


c^ 

HL. 

if  ^  1 

W^r^^ 

5^^    ' 

»1 

s^ 

;5.  — '1,1. 

^ 

^IKm 

^f     -J 

1. 

STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  219 

traditions  of  the  earlier  decades.  As  the  visitors  came 
and  went,  the  diary  in  the  sixties  and  seventies  re- 
corded their  exits  and  their  entrances.  A  few  passages 
are  typical  of  many. 

A  portion  of  the  notes  relating  to  Charlotte  Cushman 
will  be  the  better  understood  for  a  preliminary  remark 
upon  a  Boston  event  of  huge  local  moment  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1863.  This  was  the  dedication  of  the  Great 
Organ,  that  wonder  of  the  age,  in  Music  Hall.  The  first 
public  performance  on  the  organ,  at  the  ceremonies  on 
the  evening  of  November  2,  were  preceded  by  Char- 
lotte Cushman's  reading  of  a  dedicatory  ode,  contrib- 
uted, according  to  the  "Advertiser"  of  the  next  day,  by 
an  "anonymous  lady  of  this  city."  The  secret  of  Mrs. 
Fields's  authorship  of  this  poem,  which  the  "Adver- 
tiser" found  somewhat  too  long  in  spite  of  its  merits, 
must  have  been  shared  by  some  of  her  friends,  though  it 
was  temporarily  kept  from  the  public. 

Sunday,  September  20,  1863.  —  In  the  evening  Char- 
lotte Cushman  and  her  niece.  Dr.  Dewey  and  Miss 
McGregor,  Miss  Mears  and  Mr.  W.  R.  Emerson,  passed 
a  few  hours  with  us.  Charlotte,  always  of  athletic  but 
prejudiced  mind,  talked  busily  of  people  and  events. 
She  is  a  Seward-ite  in  politics  and  called  Dr.  Howe  and 
Judge  Conway  "ass-sy"  because  they  said  Charles 
Sumner  had  prevented  thus  far  a  war  with  England. 
She  has  made  money  during  the  war,  but  believes  appar- 
ently not  at  all  in  the  patriotism  of  the  people.  She  is  to 
give  one  performance  for  "the  Sanitary"  in  each  of  the 


220  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

four  northern  seacoast  cities,  also  for  fun  and  fame. 
She  can't  endure  to  give  up  the  stage.  She  is  a  woman 
of  effects.  She  lives  for  effect,  and  yet  doing  always  good 
things  and  possessed  of  most  admirable  qualities.  She 
has  warm  friends.  Mrs.  Carl  vie  is  extremely  fond  of  her, 
gives  her  presents  and  says  flattering  things  to  her. 
"Cleverer  than  her  husband,"  says  Miss  Cushman.  I 
put  this  quietly  into  my  German  pipe  and  puff  peace- 
fully. 

Saturday  Evenings  September  26,  1863.  —  Charlotte 
Cushman  played  Lady  Macbeth  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Sanitary  Commission  to  a  large  audience.  Her  reading 
of  the  letter  when  she  first  appears  is  one  of  her  finest 
points.  She  moves  her  feet  execrably  and  succeeds  in 
developing  all  the  devilish  nature  in  the  part,  but  dis- 
covers no  beauty.  Yet  it  is  delightful  to  hear  the  won- 
drous poetry  of  the  play  intelligently  and  clearly  ren- 
dered. It  would  be  impossible  to  say  this  of  the  man 
who  played  Macbeth,  who  talked  of  "encarnardine," 
and  " hcat-opprcj/  brain,"  for  "oppresst^d,"  besides  in- 
numerable other  faults  and  failures,  which  he  mouthed 
too  much  for  me  to  discover.  Charlotte  in  the  sleeping 
scene  was  fine  —  that  deep-drawn  breath  of  sleep  is 
thrilling.  .  .  . 

There  has  been  an  ode  written  to  be  spoken  at  the 
organ  opening.  No  one  is  to  know  who  wrote  it.  Miss 
Cushman  will  speak  it  if  they  are  speedy  enough  in 
their  finishing.  This  is  of  interest  to  many.  I  trust  they 
will  be  ready  for  Miss  Cushman. 

Monday,  November  2,  1863.  —  Miss  Dodge  and  Una 


FROM  A  CRAYON  PORTRAIT  OF  CHARLOTTE  CUSH.MAN 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  221 

Hawthorne  came  to  dine.  At  7  o'clock  we  all  started 
for  the  Music  Hall.  Miss  Cushman  read  my  ode  in  a 
most  perfect  manner.  She  was  very  nervous  about  it 
and  skipped  something,  but  what  she  did  read  was  per- 
fect. Her  dress  and  manner  too  were  dignified  and  beau- 
tiful. It  was  a  night  never  to  be  forgotten.  Afterward 
we  had  a  little  supper.  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Holmes,  Mr.  Og- 
den  of  New  York,  Dr.  Upham  ^  and  Judge  Putnam  and 
Mrs.  Howe  were  added  to  our  other  guests.  Charlotte 
Cushman  left  early  the  next  day  and  Gail  Hamilton  and 
I  sat  down  and  took  a  long  delicious  draught  of  talk. 

April  27,  1 871.  —  Charlotte  Cushman  came  to  see  us 
yesterday.  Her  full  brain  was  brimming  over,  and  her 
rich  sympathetic  voice  is  ringing  now  in  my  ears.  She 
does  not  overestimate  herself,  that  woman,  which  is 
part  of  her  greatness,  for  the  word  does  apply  to  her  in  a 
certain  way  because  she  grows  nearer  to  it  every  day. 
J.  de  Maistre  refused  the  epithet  "grand"  to  Napoleon 
because  he  lacked  more  stature  —  but  this  hand-to- 
hand  fight  with  death  over  herself  (loving  life  dearly  as 
she  does)  has  strengthened  her  hold  upon  her  affection 
for  life,  insensibly.   She  grows  daily  wiser  and  nobler. 

November  13,  1871.  —  We  all  went  together  to  Char- 
lotte Cushman's  debut  in  Queen  Katherine  at  the  Globe 
Theatre.  A  house  filled  with  her  friends  and  a  noble 
piece  of  acting.  She  spoke  to  every  woman's  heart 
there ;  by  this  I  felt  the  high  art  and  the  noble  sympa- 
thetic nature  far  above  art  which  was  in  the  woman  and 

1  Dr.  J.  Baxter  Upham,  the  moving  spirit  in  the  building  of  the  Music  Hall 
and  the  installation  of  the  organ.   He  presided  at  its  dedication. 


222  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

radiates  from  her.  Much  of  the  play  beside  was  poor, 
but  Mrs.  Hunt  was  very  amusing  and  we  laughed  and 
laughed  at  her  sallies  until  I  was  quite  ashamed.  J. 
went  behind  the  scenes  and  talked  with  C.  C.  She  was 
in  first-rate  condition. 

For  other  contacts  with  the  stage,  three  brief  passages 
may  speak :  — 

November  8,  1866.  —  Went  to  see  Ristori's  "Pia  dei 
Tolomei"  in  the  evening.  It  was  pure  and  beautiful. 
Being  R.'s  benefit,  she  made  a  short  speech,  and  ex- 
quisitely simple  as  it  was,  her  fine  voice  and  the  slight 
difficulty  of  enunciating  the  English  words  made  her 
speech  one  of  the  most  touching  features  of  the  time. 

Saturday.  —  Morning  at  home.  Went  to  see  Ristori 
for  the  last  time,  as  Elizabeth,  perhaps  her  finest  char- 
acterization. Longfellow  and  Whittier  had  both  prom- 
ised to  go  with  us,  but  the  courage  of  both  failed  at  the 
last  moment.  The  house  was  crowded.  Mr.  Grau  asked 
Mr.  Fields  to  go  and  speak  with  the  great  actress,  but 
he  excused  himself. 

Whittier  had  never  been  inside  of  a  theatre  and  could 
not  quite  feel  like  breaking  the  bonds  now  —  besides  he 
said  it  would  cost  him  many  nights  of  sleep.  Longfellow 
does  not  face  high  tragedy  before  a  crowd. 

January  16,  1868.  —  Fanny  Kemble  read  "The  Mer- 
chant of  Venice"  in  Boston  last  night  —  the  old  way  of 
losing  her  breath  when  she  appeared,  as  if  totally  over- 
come by  the  audience.    We  could  ncjt  doubt  that  she 


K    ^ 
J    -S 

a  ^ 


ffi      -A 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  223 

felt  her  return  deeply  and  sincerely,  but  —  however,  the 
feeling  was  undoubtedly  real  if  short-lived,  and  we  will 
give  her  credit  for  it.  Her  voice  is  sadly  faded  since  the 
brilliant  readings  of  ten  years  ago ;  she  has  had  much 
sorrow  since  then  and  shows  the  marks  of  it.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  compare  her  work  with  Mr.  Dickens's ;  he  is 
so  much  the  greater  artist !  You  can  never  mistake  one 
of  his  characters  for  another,  nor  lose  a  syllable  of  his 
perfectly  enunciated  words.  She  speaks  much  more 
slowly  usually,  and  there  is  a  grand  intonation  as  the 
verses  sway  from  her  lips,  but  one  cannot  be  sure  al- 
ways if  Jessica  or  Nerissa  be  speaking,  Antonio  or 
Bassanio.  Her  face  is  marvellous  In  tender  passages, 
a  serenity  falls  upon  it  born  of  immortal  youth.  It  Is 
beautiful  enough  for  tears.  She  enjoys  the  wit  too  her- 
self thoroughly,  and  brought  out  Launcelot  Gobbo  with 
great  unction.  An  enormous  and  enthusiastic  audience 
gave  her  hearty  welcome.  Longfellow  could  not  come 
His  wife  in  the  old  days  enjoyed  this  play  too  well  when 
they  used  to  go  together  for  him  to  trust  himself  to  hear 
it  again. 

Monday,  May  18,  1868.  —  Raining  like  all  possessed 
again  today.  I  was  to  have  done  my  gardening  today 
but  there  Is  no  chance  yet.  Walked  over  to  Roxbury 
with  J.  yesterday  and  found  everything  gay  with  the 
coming  loveliness.  It  has  scarcely  come,  however. 
Jamie  was  much  entertained  by  tales  Mrs.  Kemble's 
agent  told  him  of  that  lady :  how  she  watched  an  Irish 
scrubbing  woman  dawdle  over  her  work,  who  was  paid 
by  the  hour,  and  finally  called  her  to  her  (she  was  sit- 


224 


MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 


ting  at  her  own  reading-desk  in  the  hall),  and  said  in 
her  stately  fashion,  "I  fear,  madam,  if  you  exert  your- 
self so  much  over  your  work  you  will  make  yourself 
ill.  Your  health  is  seriously  endangered  by  your  severe 
efforts."  The  woman,  not  seeing  the  sarcasm,  replied 
in  the  strongest  possible  brogue  to  the  effect  that 
nothing  short  of  the  direst  necessity  would  compel 
such  dreadful  labor.  Whereat  Mrs.  Kemble,  with  a 
l(K)k  not  to  be  reproduced,  and  a  wink  to  Mr.  Pugh, 
withdrew.  She  read  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  on 
Saturday  p.m.  We  went,  but  found  the  place  entirely 
without  air  and  left  after  the  first  part.  She  did  not 
begin  with  much  spirit,  but  her  voice  was  exquisite  and 
her  fun  also,  and  her  dress  was  an  lusthetic  pleasure,  as 
a  lady's  dress  should  always  be,  but  alas  !  so  seldom  is, 
in  this  country. 

IVednesday^  November  9,  1870.  —  We  have  had  a 
reception  today  for  Miss  Nilsson.  Longfellow  and 
I  lenry  Ward  Hcccher  were  here,  beside  Perabo  and  many 
excellent  or  talented  people,  nearly  sixty  in  all.  It 
was  a  curious  fact  to  give  out  seventy  invitations  and 
have  sixty  (or  nearly  that)  present. 

Miss  Nilsson,  Mrs.  Richardson  (her  attendant),  Alice 
Longfellow,  and  ourselves  sat  down  to  lunch  afterward, 
when  she  sang  snatches  of  her  loveliest  songs  and  talked 
and  laughed  and  was  as  graceful  and  merry  and  sweet 
as  ever  a  beautiful  woman  knows  how  to  be.  She  is  now 
twenty-seven  years  old.  Her  light  hair,  deep  blue  eyes, 
full  glorious  eyes,  are  of  the  Northern  type,  but  her 
broad  intellectual  brow,  her  beautiful  teeth,  and  strong 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  225 

character,  belong  only  to  the  type  of  genius  and  beauty. 
She  is  not  only  brave  but  almost  imperious,  I  fancy, 
at  times;  a  manner  quite  necessary,  I  say,  to  protect 
her  from  vulgar  animosity  and  audacity.  We  heard  her 
last  night  sing  " Auld  Robin  Gray"  not  only  with  exqui- 
site feeling,  but  with  a  pronunciation  of  the  Scottish 
dialect  that  appeared  to  us  very  remarkable.  When  we 
spoke  to  her  of  it  she  said,  "Yes,  but  there  is  much  like 
that  too  in  the  Swedish  dialect.  When  I  jfirst  came  up  a 
peasant  to  Stockholm  to  learn  to  sing,  I  had  the  dialect 
very  bad  indeed,  and  it  was  a  long  time  before  I  lost  it. 
Then  I  went  to  school  in  France,  and  now  my  accent 
and  dialect  are  French.  When  I  went  back  home  and 
talked  with  the  French  dialect,  they  said  to  me,  'Now 
Christine,  don't  be  absurd,'  but  I  could  not  help  it. 
I  catch  everything.  I  have  never  studied  English  in  my 
life.  I  am  learning  American  fast.  I  have  learned  'I 
guess,'  and  I  shall  soon  say  *I  reckon'  by  the  time 
I  come  back  from  the  West." 

Vieuxtemps,  the  violinist,  she  appreciates  and  en- 
joys highly  as  an  artist.  Of  Ole  Bull  she  says,  "He  is  a 
charlatan.  Ah,  you  will  excuse  me,  but  it  is  true."  Of 
Viardot-Garcia  she  has  the  highest  admiration.  Noth- 
ing ever  gave  her  higher  delight  than  Viardot's  com- 
pliment after  hearing  her  "Mignon."  It  was  uncalled 
for,  unexpected,  and  from  the  heart.  She  rehearsed 
what  we  recall  so  well,  Viardot's  plain  face,  poor  figure 
—  and  great  genius  triumphant  over  all.  Well,  we 
hear  poor  Viardot  has  lost  her  fortune  by  this  sad 
French  war. 


2-6  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

I  have  set  down  nothing  which  can  recall  the  strong 
sweet  beauty  of  Nilsson.  She  is  a  power  to  command 
success  —  fine  and  strong  and  sweet.  Her  face  glowed 
and  responded  and  originated  in  a  swift  yet  gentle  way, 
as  one  person  after  another  was  presented,  that  was  a 
study  and  a  lesson.  She  neither  looked  nor  seemed  tired 
until  the  presentation  was  over,  when  she  said  she  was 
hungry.  "We  have  had  no  breakfast  yet,  nothing  to 
eat  all  day;  ah,  I  shall  know  again  what  it  means  when 
Mrs.  Fields  asks  me  to  lunch  at  one  o'clock!"  with  an 
arch  look  at  me.  I  was  extremely  penitent  and  hurried 
the  lunch,  but  the  people  could  not  go  out  of  the  dining- 
room.  However,  all  was  cleaned  at  last  and  we  had  a 
quiet  cosy  talk  and  sit-down,  which  was  delightful. 

On  Saturday  she  sang  from  "Hamlet,"  the  mad 
scene  of  Ophelia.  .As  usual,  her  dress  and  whole  appear- 
ance were  of  the  most  refined  and  perfect  beauty,  and 
her  singing  we  appreciated  even  more  deeply  than  ever. 
She  has  not  the  remote  exalte  nature  of  highest  genius, 
but  she  is  the  great  singer  of  this  new  time,  and  her 
realism  is  in  marked  sympathy  with  her  period. 


It  has  already  been  suggested  that,  when  Thomas 
Bailey  Aldrich  made  his  migration  to  Boston  as  editor  of 
"Every  Saturday,"  he  brought  into  the  circle  of  the 
Ficldses  many  fresh  breezes  from  the  outer  world.  In 
the  diary  of  Mrs.  Fields  there  are  frequent  notes  re- 
vealing a  friendship  which  lasted,  indeed,  long  after 
the  diary  ceased,  and  up  to  the  end  of  Aldrich's  life. 


CHRISTIx\E  NILSSON  AS  OPHELIA 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  227 

in  1907.  Two  entries  —  the  first  relating  to  the  mete- 
oric author  of  "The  Diamond  Lens,"  regarded  in  its 
day  as  a  bright  portent  in  the  hterary  heavens,  the  sec- 
ond to  the  Aldriches  themselves  at  the  country  place 
with  the  name  which  Aldrich  embalmed  in  his  excellent 
title,  "From  Ponkapog  to  Pesth"  —  warrant  conver- 
sion from  manuscript  into  print. 

November  9, 1865.  —  Aldrich  told  us  the  story  of  Fitz- 
James  O'Brien,  the  able  author  of  "The  Diamond 
Lens."  He  was  a  handsome  fellow,  and  began  his  career 
by  running  away  with  the  wife  of  an  English  officer. 
The  officer  was  in  Lidia,  and  Fitz-James  and  the  guilty 
woman  had  fled  to  one  of  the  seaports  on  the  south  of 
England  in  order  to  take  passage  for  America,  when  the 
arrival  of  the  woman's  husband  was  announced  to  them 
and  O'Brien  fled.  He  concealed  himself  on  board  a  ship 
bound  for  New  York.  There  he  ran  a  career  of  dissipa- 
tion, landing  with  only  sixty  dollars.  He  went  to  a  first- 
rate  hotel,  ordered  wines,  and  left  a  large  bill  behind 
when  the  time  came  to  run  away.  Then  he  wrote  for 
Harpers,  and  one  publisher  and  another,  writing  little 
and  over-drawing  funds  on  a  large  scale.  He  came  and 
lived  six  weeks  upon  Aldrich  in  his  uncle's  house  one 
summer  when  the  family  were  away.  One  day  he  tried 
to  borrow  money  of  Harpers,  and  being  refused  he 
went  into  the  bindery  department,  borrowed  a  board, 
printed  on  it,  "I  am  starving,"  bored  holes  through 
the  ends,  put  in  a  string,  hung  it  round  his  neck, 
allowed  his  fawn-colored  gloves  to  depend  over  each 


228  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

end,  and  stood  in  the  doorway  where  the  firm  should 
see  him  when  they  went  to  dinner.  A  great  hiugh  and 
more  money  was  the  result  of  this  escapade.  Finally, 
when  the  war  broke  out,  he  enlisted,  and  this  was  the 
last  A.  heard  of  him  for  some  time;  but,  being  himself 
called  to  take  a  position  on  General  Lander's  staff,  he 
was  on  his  way  to  Richmond  and  had  reached  Peters- 
burg, when  someone  told  him  Fitz-James  O'Brien  had 
been  shot  dead.  Then  he  went  to  the  hospital  and  saw 
him  lying  there  dead. 

Shortly  after  this,  when  Bayard  Taylor  and  his  wife 
were  dining  in  a  hotel  restaurant  at  Dover,  I  believe, 
—  it  was  one  of  the  south  of  England  towns,  —  they 
saw  themselves  closely  observed  by  a  lady  and  gentle- 
man sitting  near  them.  Finally  the  gentleman  arose 
and  came  to  speak  to  Taylor,  said  he  observed  they 
were  Americans,  and  asked  if  he  had  ever  heard  of 
F.  J.  O'Brien.  "Oh,  yes,"  said  Taylor,  "I  knew  him 
very  well.  He  was  killed  in  our  war."  Then  the  lady 
burst  into  tears  and  the  gentleman  said,  "She  is  his 
mother!" 

I  forgot  to  say  in  the  course  of  the  story  that  he 
borrowed  once  sixty-five  dollars  for  which  A.  became 
responsible,  and  when  it  was  not  paid  he  sent  a  let- 
ter to  O'B.  saying  he  must  pay  it.  In  return  O'Brien 
sent  him  a  challenge  for  a  duel,  which  A.  accepted,  in 
the  meantime  discovering  that  an  honorable  fight 
could  not  be  between  a  debtor  and  a  creditor.  How- 
ever, when  the  time  appointed  arrived,  O'Brien  hail 
absconded.    We  could  not  repress  a  smile  at  the  idea 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  229 

of  A.' s  fighting,  for  he  is  a  painfully  small  gentleman. 

May  31,  1876.  —  Passed  the  day  with  the  Aldriches 
at  Ponkapog.  Aldrich  maintained  at  dinner  that  the 
horse  railroad  injured  Charles  Street.  His  wife  and 
J.  T.  F.  took  the  opposite  ground.  Finally  J.  said,  "Well, 
the  Philadelphians  don't  agree  with  you ;  they  have 
learned  the  value  of  horse  railroads  in  their  streets." 
"Oh,  that 's  because  they  are  such  Christians,"  said  A. 
"They  know  whom  the  Lord  loveth  He  chasteneth." 

He  is  a  queer,  witty  creature.  When  the  railroad 
dropped  us  at  Green  Lodge  station,  a  tiny  place  sur- 
rounded by  wild  green  woods  and  bog,  we  found  him 
sitting  on  a  corner  of  the  platform  where  he  said  he  had 
been  "listening  to  the  bullfrog  tune  his  violin.  He  had 
been  twanging  at  one  string  a  long  time  !"  Aldrich  was 
in  an  ecstasy  of  delight,  and  in  truth  it  was  a  day  to  put 
the  most  untuned  spirit  into  tune.  Li  the  afternoon  we 
floated  on  the  beautiful  pond.  The  whole  day  gave  us  a 
series  of  pictures  —  only  thirteen  miles  from  town,  yet 
the  beechwoods  can  be  no  more  retired.  Mr.  Pierce 
owns  ^QO  acres,  and  it  must  be  a  pleasure  to  him,  while 
he  is  away  in  Washington,  to  feel  that  someone  is  using 
and  enjoying  hisi  beautiful  domain;  and  how  could  it 
be  half  so  well  used  and  enjoyed  as  by  the  family  of  a 
struggling  literary  man  !  The  house  they  live  in,  which 
was  going  to  decay,  may  really  be  considered  a  creation 
of  Lilian's.  Altogether  she  is  very  clever  and  Aldrich 
most  fortunate  and  our  Washington  senator  is  doubt- 
less most  content  to  think  of  the  enjoyment  of  others 
in  his  domain. 


230  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Still  more  exotic  a  figure  in  Boston  than  Aldrich 
was  William  Morris  Hunt  —  in  spite  of  his  temporary 
association  with  Harvard  College  and  his  Boston  mar- 
riage. Both  he  and  his  wife  are  constantly  to  be  met 
in  the  pages  of  Mrs.  Fields's  journals,  from  which  they 
emerged  with  some  frequency  into  her  published  "Bio- 
graphical Notes,"  even  as  they  have  reappeared,  with 
others,  on  earlier  pages  of  this  book. 

In  other  places  than  Charles  Street,  Fields  and  Hunt 
were  often  meeting.  One  brief  record  of  an  encounter, 
at  the  end  of  a  Saturday  Club  meeting,  should  surely 
be  preserved,  for  all  that  it  suggests  of  Hunt  in  amused 
rebellion  against  his  surroundings. 

Sunday  J  Jugust  26,  1874.  —  Hunt  came  to  Jamie 
when  the  afternoon  was  nearly  ended  and  asked  him  to 
go  up  to  his  studio.  As  they  went  along,  he  said,  "I  've 
made  a  poem  !  First  time  I  ever  wrote  anything  in  my 
life.  T  is  n't  long,  only  four  lines,  but  I  've  got  it  writ- 
ten down."  Whereat  then  and  there  he  pulled  out  his 
pocketbook  and  read  : 

"Boston  is  a  hilly  place; 
People  all  are  brothers-in-law. 
If  you  or  I  want  something  done 
They  treat  us  then  like  mothers-in-law. 

"This  goes  to  the  tune  of  Yankee  Doodle,"  whereat  he 
sang  it  out  on  the  public  highway.  He  looked  very  hand- 
some, was  beautifully  dressed  in  brown  velvet  with  a 


x^   /^^ 


'^  - 


^t^d^    d^Ui^    c^yU^^^^^ 


0/  '  Ov^Ca^        /^^^U^^'^^^ 


Facsimile  letter  from  Hunt  to  Fields 


121  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

gold  chain  about  his  neck,  hut  swore  hke  a  trooper  and 
was  in  one  of  his  most  hiwless  moods. 

He  gav'e  J.  for  me  a  photograph  of  a  marvellous 
picture  which  he  calls  his  Persian  Sybil,  Anahita.  I 
see  his  wife  in  it  as  in  so  many  of  his  best  works.  "  I 
don't  mean  to  do  any  more  portraits,"  he  said.  "When 
I  remember  how  I  have  wasted  time  on  an  eyebrow 
because  somebody's  14th  cousin  thought  it  ought  to 
turn  up  a  little  more  —  it  makes  me  mad  ! " 

When  the  English  painter,  Lowes  Dickinson,  the 
father  of  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  was  visiting  the  Fieldses 
in  Boston,  a  photograph  of  Hunt's  portrait  of  Chief 
Justice  Lemuel  Shaw  so  impressed  him  that  he  asked 
to  be  taken  to  the  painter's  studio.  In  Miss  Helen  M. 
Knowlton's  "Art  Life  of  William  Morris  Hunt"  this 
circumstance  is  related,  together  with  its  sequel,  which 
was  the  publication  of  Hunt's  "Talks  on  Art"  from 
notes  made  by  Miss  Knowlton  herself.  It  is  a  surmise 
but  slightly  hazardous  that  a  characteristic  note  found 
among  the  Fields  papers  was  written  apropos  of  Dickin- 
son's visit  to  Hunt :  "Send  'em  along  —  I  mean  Paint- 
ers," he  wrote  to  Fields.  "I  have  had  a  delightful  day 
with  your  friend  —  and  I  know  he  is  a  painter  —  why  ? 
because  he  likes  what  I  do  well  and  hates  what  I  do 
that  ain't  worth.  .  .  ." 


It  has  been  seen  that,  as  early  as  November,  1R6S, 
James  Parton  suggested  that  "a  writer  named  Mark 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  233 

Twain"  be  engaged  to  contribute  to  the  "Atlantic."^ 
In  October,  1868,  "F.  Bret  Harte"  wrote  to  the  editor 
of  the  "Atlantic"  from  San  Francisco:  "As  the  author 
of 'The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp,'  I  have  to  thank  you  for 
an  invitation  to  contribute  to  the  'Atlantic  Monthly,* 
but  as  editor  of  'The  Overland,'  my  duties  claim  most 
of  my  spare  time  outside  of  the  Government  office  in 
which  I  am  employed.  .  .  .  But  I  am  glad  of  this  op- 
portunity to  thank  someone  connected  with  the  'Atlan- 
tic' for  its  very  gracious  good-will  toward  me  and  my 
writings,  particularly  the  book  which  G.  W.  Carleton 
of  New  York  malformed  in  its  birth.  There  was  an 
extra  kindness  in  your  taking  the  deformed  brat  by  the 
hand,  and  trying  to  recognize  some  traces  of  a  parent 
so  far  away." 

It  was  in  the  discharge  of  his  work  as  editor  of  the 
"Atlantic"  that  Fields,  hospitable  to  practitioners  of  all 
the  arts,  entered  especially  into  relations  with  writers 
whose  paths  might  not  otherwise  have  crossed  his,  and 
his  wife's.  Of  all  the  young  Lochinvars  of  the  pen  who 
came  out  of  the  West  while  Mrs.  Fields  was  keeping  her 
diary,  Bret  Harte  and  Mark  Twain  were  the  daring  and 
dauntless  gallants  who  most  captured  the  imagination 
and  have  longest  held  it.  To  each  of  them  Mrs.  Fields 
devoted  a  numbei  of  pages  in  her  diary.  We  shall  see 
first  what  she  had  to  say  about  Bret  Harte. 

Friday,  March  lO,  1 87 1.  —  Too  many  days  full  of 

1  See  ante,  page  iii. 


2.i!4  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

interest  have  passed  unrecorded.  Chiefly  I  should 
record  what  I  can  recall  of  Francis  Bret  Harte,  who  has 
made  his  first  visit  to  the  East  just  now,  since  he  went 
to  San  Francisco  in  his  early  youth.  He  is  now  appar- 
ently about  ^S  years  old.  His  mind  is  full  of  the  grand 
landscape  of  the  West,  and  filled  also  with  sympathetic 
interest  in  the  half-developed  natives  who  are  to  be 
seen  there,  nearer  to  the  surface  than  in  our  Eastern 
cities.  He  told  me  of  a  gambler  who  had  a  friend  lying 
dead  in  the  upper  room  of  a  gambling  house.  The  man 
went  out  to  see  about  having  services  performed. 
"  Better  have  it  at  the  grave,"  said  the  parson  to  whom 
he  applied.  Jim  shook  his  head  as  if  he  feared  the  proper 
honors  would  not  be  paid  his  friend.  The  other  then 
suggested  they  should  find  the  minister  and  leave  it 
to  him.  "Well,"  said  Jim,  "yes,  I  wish  you  'd  do  just 
that,  for  I  ain't  much  of  a  funeral  'sharp'  myself."  He 
told  me  also,  as  a  sign  of  the  wonderful  recklessness 
which  had  pervaded  San  Francisco,  that  at  one  time 
there  was  a  glut  of  tobacco  in  the  market  and,  a  block 
of  houses  going  up  at  the  same  period,  the  foundations 
oj  those  houses  were  laid  of  boxes  of  tobacco.  Bret  Harie, 
as  the  world  calls  him,  is  natural,  warm-hearted,  with  a 
keen  relish  for  fun,  disposed  to  give  just  value  to  the 
strong  language  of  the  West,  which  he  is  by  no  means 
inclined  to  dispense  with;  at  ease  in  every  society, 
quick  of  sense  and  sight.  Jamie,  who  saw  him  more  than 
I,  finds  him  lovable  above  all.  Wc  liked  his  wife  too,  — 
not  handsome  but  with  good  honest  sense,  apprecia- 
tive of  him,  —  and  two  children.     She  is  said  to  sing 


Facsirnik  page  Jrom  an  early  letter  of  Bret  Harte" s 


236  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

well,  but  poor  woman  !  the  fatigues  of  that  most  dis- 
tressing journey  across  the  continent,  the  fetes,  the 
heat  (for  the  weather  is  unusually  warm),  have  been 
almost  too  much  for  her  and  she  is  not  certainly  at 
her  best.  They  dined  and  took  tea  here  last  Friday. 

Tuesday^  September  5,  1871.  —  J.  went  to  Boston. 
I  wrote  in  the  pastures  and  walked  all  the  morning. 
Coming  home,  after  dinner,  came  a  telegram  for  me 
to  meet  J.  and  Bret  Harte  at  Beverly  station  with  the 
pony  carriage.  I  drove  hard  to  catch  the  train,  but 
arrived  in  season,  glad  to  take  up  the  two  good  boys 
and  show  them  Beverly  shore.  Stopped  at  Mrs.  Cabot's 

returning  to  see  Mrs. ,  etc.   They  were  all  glad  to 

have  a  glimpse  of  Bret  Harte.  The  talk  turned  a  little 
upon   Hawthorne,   and   I    was   much   amused   to   hear 

Mrs.  say,  drawing  herself  up,  "Yes,  he  was  born 

in  Salem,  but  we  never  knew  anything  about  him." 
(The  truth  was,  Mrs. was  the  last  person  to  appre- 
ciate him.)  .  .  .  Fortunately  Miss  Howes  was  present, 
whose  father  was  one  of  Hawthorne's  best  friends ;  so 
matters  were  made  clear  there.  We  left  soon  and  came 
on  to  Manchester,  where,  after  showing  him  the  shore, 
we  sat  and  talked  during  the  evening. 

Mr.  Harte  had  much  to  say  of  the  beautiful  flowers  of 
California,  roses  being  in  bloom  about  his  own  house 
there  every  month  in  the  year.  He  found  the  cloudless 
skies  and  continued  drought  of  California  very  hard 
to  bear.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  considered  how 
terrible  perpetual  cloudlessness  would  be!  He  thinks 
there  is  no  beauty  in  the  mountains  of  California,  hard, 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  237 

bare,  snowless  peaks.   Neither  are  there  trees,  nor  any 
green  grass. 

He  is  delighted  with  the  fragrant  lawns  of  Newport 
and  has,  I  believe,  put  into  verse  a  delightful  ghost  story 
which  he  told  us.i  He  has  taken  a  house  of  some  an- 
tiquity in  Newport,  connected  with  which  is  the  story 
of  a  lady  who  formerly  lived  there  and  who  was  very 
fond  of  the  odor  of  mignonette.  The  flower  was  always 
growing  in  her  house,  and  after  her  death,  at  two  o'clock 
every  night,  a  strong  odor  has  always  been  perceived 
passing  through  the  house  as  if  wafted  along  by  the 
garments  of  a  woman.  One  night  at  the  appointed  hour, 
but  entirely  unconnected  in  his  thought  with  the  story 
Mr.  Harte  had  long  ago  heard,  he  was  arrested  in  his 
work  by  a  strong  perfume  of  mignonette  which  appeared 
to  sweep  by  him.  He  looked  about,  thinking  his  wife 
might  have  placed  a  vase  of  flowers  in  the  room,  but 
finding  nothing  he  began  to  follow  the  odor,  which 
seemed  to  flit  before  him.  Then  he  recalled,  for  the  first 
time,  the  story  he  had  heard.  He  opened  the  door ;  the 
odor  was  in  the  hall;  he  opened  the  room  where  the 
lady  died,  but  there  was  no  odor  there;  until  returning, 
after  making  a  circuit  of  the  house,  he  found  a  faint 
perfume  as  if  she  had  passed  but  not  stayed  there  also. 
At  last,  somewhat  oppressed  perhaps  by  the  ghostliness 
of  the  place  and  hour,  he  went  out  and  stood  upon  the 
porch.  There  his  dream  vanished.  The  sweet  lawn 
and  tree  flowers  were  emitting  an  odor,  as  is  common  at 

1  "A  Newport  Romance,"  published  in  t\\c  Atlantic  Monthly  for  October, 


238  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

the  hour  when  dews  congeal,  more  sweet  than  at  any 
other  time  of  day  or  night,  and  the  air  was  redolent  of 
sweets  which  might  easily  be  construed  into  mignon- 
ette. The  story  was  well  told  and  I  shall  be  glad  to 
see  his  poem. 

Many  good  stories  came  off  during  the  evening,  some 
very  characteristic  of  California;  ones  such  as  that  of 
an  uproar  in  a  theatre  and  a  man  about  to  be  killed, 
when  someone  shouts,  "Don't  waste  him,  but  kill  a 
fiddler  with  him."  Also  one  of  the  opening  nights  at 
the  California  theatre,  the  place  packed,  when  a  man 
who  has  taken  too  much  whiskey  wishes  a  noise ;  imme- 
diately the  manager,  a  strong  executive  man,  catches 
him  up  with  the  help  of  a  policeman,  and  before  any- 
body knows  the  thing  is  done  or  the  disturber  what  is 
the  matter,  he  finds  himself  set  down  on  the  sidewalk 
outside  in  the  street.  "Well,"  said  he  with  an  oath,  "is 
this  the  way  you  do  business  here ;  raise  a  fellow  before 
he  has  a  chance  to  draw?"  (referring  to  the  game  of 
poker). 

Mr.  Harte  is  a  very  sensitive  and  nervous  man.  He 
struggles  against  himself  all  the  time.  He  sat  on  the 
piazza  with  J.  and  talked  till  a  late  hour.  This  morning  at 
breakfast  I  found  him  most  interesting.  He  talked  of  his 
early  and  best-loved  books.  It  appears  that  at  the  age 
of  nine  he  was  a  lover  and  reader  of  Montaigne.  Certain 
writers,  he  says,  seem  to  him  to  stand  out  as  friends  and 
brothers  side  by  side  in  literature.  Now  Horace  and 
Montaigne  are  so  associated  in  his  mind.  Mr.  Emerson, 
he  thinks,  never  in  the  least  approaches  a  comprehen- 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  239 

sion  of  the  character  of  the  man.  With  an  admiration 
for  his  great  sayings,  he  has  never  guessed  at  the  subtle 
springs  from  which  they  come.  The  pleasant  acceding 
to  both  sides  in  politics,  and  other  traits  of  like  nature, 
gives  him  affinity  with  Hawthorne.  By  the  way,  he  is 
a  true  appreciator  of  Hawthorne.  He  was  moved  to 
much  merriment  yesterday  by  remembering  a  passage 
in  the  notes,  where  he  slyly  remarks,  "Margaret  Fuller's 
cows  hooked  the  other  cows."  Speaking  of  Dr.  Bartol,  he 
said,  "What  a  dear  old  man  he  is  !  A  venerable  baby, 
nothing  more  ! "  But  Harte  is  most  kindly  and  tender. 
His  wife  has  been  very  ill  and  has  given  him  cause  for 
terrible  anxiety.  This  accounts  for  much  left  undone, 
but  he  is  an  oblivious  man  oftentimes  to  his  surround- 
ings —  leaves  things  behind  ! ! 

January  12,  1872.  —  Bret  Harte  was  here  at  break- 
fast. It  is  curious  to  see  his  feeling  with  regard  to  soci- 
ety. For  purely  literary  society,  with  its  affectations 
and  contempts,  he  has  no  sympathy.  He  has  at  length 
chosen  New  York  as  his  residence,  and  among  the 
Schuylers,  Sherwoods,  and  their  friends  he  appears  to 
find  what  he  enjoys.  There  is  evidently  a  gene  about 
people  and  life  here,  and  provincialisms  which  he  found 
would  hurt  him.  He  is  very  sensitive  and  keen,  with  a 
love  and  reverence  for  Dickens  almost  peculiar  in  this 
coldly  critical  age.  Bryant  he  finds  very  cold  and  totally 
unwilling  to  lead  the  conversation,  as  he  should  do 
when  they  are  together,  as  he  justly  remarks,  he  being 
so  much  younger  —  but  never  a  word  without  cart  and 
horses  to  fetch  it. 


240  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Bret  Harte  has  a  queer  absent-minded  way  of  spend- 
ing his  time,  letting  the  hours  shp  by  as  if  he  had  not 
altogether  learned  their  value  yet.  It  is  a  miracle  to 
us  how  he  lives,  for  he  writes  very  little.  Thus  far  I 
suppose  he  has  had  money  from  J.  R.  O.  &  Co.,  but  I 
fancy  they  have  done  with  giving  out  money  save  for  a 
quid  pro  quo. 

February y  1872  [during  a  visit  to  New  York].  —  We 
had  promised  to  dine  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harte  early 
and  go  to  the  theatre  afterward,  therefore  four  o'clock 
found  us  at  their  door.  He  welcomed  us  by  opening  it 
himself  and  only  this  reassured  Jamie.  We  had  driven 
up  in  a  "Crystal,"  much  to  my  amusement,  in  which  J. 
had  insisted  I  should  sit  until  he  discovered  if  that  was 
the  house.  The  scene  was  altogether  comic.  I  shortened 
the  ludicrousness  as  much  as  possible  by  jumping  out 
and  running  quickly  up  the  steps.  Mrs.  Harte  was  not 
ready  to  see  me,  but  I  found  Mr.  Barrett  the  actor  with 
Mr.  Harte  in  the  parlor,  and  soon  being  invited  upstairs, 
found  Mrs.  Barrett  and  Mrs.  Harte  together.  We  had 
a  merry  dinner  together,  the  young  actor  evidently 
quite  nervous  with  respect  to  the  evening's  performance. 
He  went  an  hour  before  us  to  the  play.  We  sat  in  the 
stage  box;  the  play  was  "Julius  Caesar."  It  is  useless 
to  deny  Edwin  Booth  great  talent,  exquisite  grace  and 
feeling.  Both  the  young  men,  the  first,  Barrett,  a  man  of 
intellect,  and  Booth,  a  man  of  inherited  grace  and  feel- 
ing as  well  as  good  mind,  have  the  advantage  moreover 
of  being  born  to  the  stage.  Their  stage  habits  fit  them 
more  perfectly  than  those  of  the  drawing-room  and  they 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  241 

walk  the  stage  with  the  ease  that  most  men  do  their 
own  parlors.  During  the  performance  Booth  invited  us 
into  his  drawing-room ;  a  short  carpeted  way  led  from 
the  box  into  the  small  room  where  he  was  sitting  in 
Roman  costume,  pipe  in  mouth ;  he  rose  and  called 
*'Mary,"  as  we  approached,  when  the  tiniest  woman 
ever  called  wife  made  her  appearance.  She  is  an  ardent 
little  spark  of  human  flame  and  he  really  looks  large 
beside  her. 

But  his  grace,  his  grace !  His  dress  too,  was  as  usual 
perfect  —  more,  far  more  than  all,  both  the  actors  had 
such  feeling  for  Shakespeare  and  for  their  parts  with 
which  they  are  filling  the  stage  nightly,  that  they  were 
deeply  and  truly  enthusiastic.  It  was  a  sight  to  warm 
Shakespeare. 

Saturday,  September  18,  1875.  —  Bret  Harte  came  on 
the  \  past  12  train.  He  came  in  good  health,  save  a 
headache  which  ripened  as  the  day  went  on ;  but  he 
was  bubbling  over  with  fun,  full  of  the  most  natural  and 
unexpected  sallies.  He  wished  to  know  if  I  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  Cochin  China  hen.  They  had  one  at 
Cohasset.  They  had  named  him  Benventuro  (after  a 
certain  gay  Italian  singer  of  strong  self-appreciation  who 
came  formerly  to  America).  He  said  this  hen's  state  of 
mind  on  finding  a  half-exploded  fire-cracker  and  her 
depressed  condition  since  its  explosion  was  something 
extraordinary.  His  description  was  so  vivid  that  I  still 
see  this  hen  perambulating  about  the  house,  first  with 
pride,  second  with  precipitation,  fallen  into  disgrace 
among  her  fellows. 


MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 


He  said  Cohasset  was  not  the  place  to  live  in  the  sum- 
mer if  one  wanted  sea-breezes.  They  all  came  straight 
from  Chicago  ! !  He  fancied  the  place,  thinking  it  an  old 
fishing  village,  not  unlike  Yarmouth.  Instead  of  which 
they  prided  themselves  upon  never  having  "any  of  your 
sea-smells,"  and,  being  five  miles  from  the  doctor,  could 
not  be  considered  a  cheerful  place  to  live  in  with  sick 
children.  He  said  he  was  surprised  to  find  J.  T.  F.  with- 
out a  sailor's  jacket  and  collar.  The  actors  among  whom 
he  had  been  living  rather  overdid  the  business;  their 
collars  were  wider,  their  shirts  fuller,  and  their  trousers 
more  bulgy  than  those  of  any  real  sailor  he  had  ever 
observed,  and  the  manner  of  hitching  up  the  trousers 
was  entirely  peculiar  to  themselves  and  to  the  stage. 

We  went  to  call  upon  the  Hurlingames.  In  describing 
Ilarrisburg,  Virginia,  where  he  had  lectured,  he  said  a 
committee-man  came  to  invite  him  to  take  a  walk,  and 
he  was  so  afflicted  with  a  headache  that  he  was  ready 
to  take  or  give  away  his  life  at  any  moment ;  so  he  ac- 
cepted the  invitation  and  walked  out  with  him.  The 
man  observed  that  Harrisburg  was  a  very  healthy  place  ; 
only  one  man  a  day  died  in  that  vicinity.  "Oh!"  said 
Harte,  remembering  the  dangerous  state  of  his  own 
mind,  "has  that  man  died  yet  today  ?"  The  man  shook 
his  head  gravely,  never  suspecting  a  joke,  and  said  he 
did  n't  know,  but  he  would  try  to  find  out.  Whereat 
Harte,  to  keep  up  the  joke,  said  he  wished  he  would.  He 
went  to  the  lecture  forgetting  all  about  it  and  saw  this 
man  hanging  around  without  getting  a  chance  to  speak. 
The  next  morning  very  early,  he  managed  to  get  an 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  243 

opportunity  to  speak  to  him.  "I  couldn't  find  out 
exactly  about  that  man  yesterday,"  he  said.  "What 
man?"  said  H.  "Why,  the  one  we  were  speaking  of; 
the  Coroner  said  he  could  n't  say  precisely  who  it  was, 
but  the  one  man  would  average  all  right." 

Harte  said  in  speaking  of  Longfellow  that  no  one  had 
yet  overpraised  him.  The  delicate  quality  of  humor,  the 
exquisite  fineness  in  the  choice  of  words,  the  breadth 
and  sweetness  of  his  nature  were  something  he  could 
hardly  help  worshipping.  One  day  after  a  dinner  at  Mr. 
Lowell's  he  said,  "I  think  I  will  not  have  a  carriage  to 
return  to  town.  I  will  walk  down  to  the  Square.'*  "  I  will 
walk  with  you,"  said  Longfellow.  When  they  arrived  at 
his  gate,  he  said,  he  was  so  beautiful  that  he  could  only 
think  of  the  light  and  whiteness  of  the  moon,  and  if  he 
had  stayed  a  moment  longer  he  should  have  put  his  arms 
around  him  and  made  a  fool  of  himself  then  and  there. 
Whereat  he  said  good  night  abruptly  and  turned  away. 

He  brought  his  novel  and  play  ^  with  him  which  are 
just  now  finished,  for  us  to  read.  He  has  evidently 
enjoyed  the  play,  and  he  enjoys  the  fame  and  the 
money  they  both  bring  him. 

He  is  a  dramatic,  lovable  creature  with  his  blue  silk 
pocket-handkerchief  and  red  dressing  slippers  and  his 
quick  feelings.  I  could  hate  the  man  who  could  help 
loving  him  —  or  the  woman  either. 

In  thd  passages  touching  upon  Mark  Twain  now  to  be 
copied  from  the  journals,  he  is  seen,  not  in  Boston,  but 

1  Probably  Gabriel  Convoy  and  Two  Men  of  Sandy  Bar. 


244  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

in  Hartford.  If  Mrs.  Fields  had  continued  her  diary 
until  1879,  there  would  doubtless  have  been  a  faithful 
contemporaneous  account  of  the  humorist's  unhappy 
attempt  to  be  funny  both  in  the  presence  and  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  "  Augustans"  assembled  in  honor  of  Whit- 
tier's  seventieth  birthday.^  But  Mrs.  Fields's  reports 
of  talk  and  observations  under  his  own  roof,  in  the 
days  when  his  fame  rested  entirely  upon  a  handful  of  his 
earlier  books,  should  take  their  place  in  the  authentic 
annals  of  an  extraordinary  personality.  On  the  first  of 
the  two  occasions  recorded,  Fields  went  alone  to  deliver 
a  lecture  in  Hartford,  and  in  answer  to  a  post-card  in- 
vitation signed  "Mark,"  stayed  in  the  new  house  of  the 
Clemcnses.  On  the  second  occasion,  three  weeks  later, 
Mrs.  Fields  accompanied  him.  After  her  husband's  re- 
turn from  the  first  visit  she  wrote:  — 

April  6,  1876.  —  He  found  Mrs.  Clemens  quite  ill. 
They  had  been  in  New  York  where  he  had  given  four 
lectures  hoping  to  get  money  for  Dr.  Brown.  He  had 
never  lectured  there  before  without  making  a  great  deal 
of  money.  This  time  he  barely  covered  his  expenses. 
He  was  very  interesting  and  told  J.  the  whole  story  of 
his  life.  They  sat  until  midnight  after  the  lecture,  Mark 
drinking  ale  to  make  him  sleepy.  He  says  he  can't  sleep 
as  other  people  do ;  his  kind  of  sleep  is  the  only  sort  for 
him  —  three  or  four  hours  of  good  solid  comfort  —  more 
than  that  makes  him  ill ;  he  can't  afford  to  sleep  all  his 
thoughts  away.   He  described  the  hunger  of  his  child- 

'  Sec  The  .Itlantic  Monthly  and  Us  Makers^  pp.  7J-75. 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  245 

hood  for  books,  how  the  "Fortunes  of  Nigel"  was  one 
of  the  first  stories  which  came  to  him  while  he  was  learn- 
ing to  be  a  pilot  on  a  Mississippi  boat.  He  hid  himself 
with  it  behind  a  barrel  where  he  was  found  by  the 
master,  who  read  him  a  lecture  upon  the  ruinous  effects 
of  reading.  "I  've  seen  it  over  and  over  agin,"  he  said. 
"You  need  n't  tell  me  anythin'  about  it ;  if  ye  're  going 
to  be  a  pilot  on  this  river  yer  need  n't  ever  think  of 
reading,  for  it  just  spiles  all.  Yer  can't  remember  how 
high  the  tides  was  in  Can's  Gut  three  trips  before  the 
last  now,  I  '11  wager."  "Why  no,"  said  Mark,  "that 
was  six  months  ago."  "I  don't  care  if  't  was,"  said  the 
man.  "If  you  had  n't  been  spiling  yer  mind  by  readin* 
ye  'd  have  remembered."  So  he  was  never  allowed  to 
read  any  more  after  that.  "And  now,"  says  Mark,  "not 
being  able  to  have  it  when  I  was  hungry  for  it,  I  can 
only  read  the  Encyclopedia  nowadays."  Which  is  not 
true  —  he  reads  everything. 

The  story  of  his  courtship  and  marriage,  too,  was 
very  strange  and  interesting.  A  portion  of  this  has, 
however,  leaked  into  the  daily  papers,  so  I  will  not 
repeat  it  here.  One  point  interested  me  greatly,  how- 
ever, as  showing  the  strength  of  character  and  right- 
ness  of  vision  in  the  man.  He  said  he  had  not  been 
married  many  months  when  his  wife's  father  came  to 
him  one  evening  and  said,  "My  son,  would  n't  you  like 
to  go  to  Europe  with  your  wife?"  "Why  yes,  sir," 
he  said,  "if  I  could  afford  it."  "Well  then,"  said  he, 
"if  you  will  leave  off  smoking  and  drinking  ale  you 
shall  have  ten  thousand  dollars  this  next  year  and  go  to 


246  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Europe  beside."  "Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Mark,  "this  is 
very  good  of  you,  and  I  appreciate  it,  but  I  can't  sell 
myself.  I  will  do  anything  I  can  for  you  or  any  of  your 
family,  but  I  can't  sell  myself."  The  result  was,  said 
Mark,  "  I  never  smoked  a  cigar  all  that  year  nor  drank  a 
glass  of  ale ;  but  when  the  next  year  came  I  found  I  must 
write  a  book,  and  when  I  sat  down  to  write  I  found  it 
was  n't  worth  anything.  I  must  have  a  cigar  to  steady 
my  nerves.  I  began  to  smoke,  and  I  wrote  my  book ; 
but  then  I  could  n't  sleep  and  I  had  to  drink  ale  to  go  to 
sleep.  Now  if  I  had  sold  myself,  I  could  n't  have  written 
my  book,  or  I  could  n't  have  gone  to  sleep,  but  now 
everything  works  perfectly  well." 

He  and  his  wife  have  wretched  health,  poor  things! 
And  in  spite  of  their  beautiful  home  must  often  have 
rather  a  hard  time.  He  is  very  eccentric,  disturbed  by 
every  noise,  and  it  cannot  be  altogether  easy  to  have 
care  of  such  a  man.  It  is  a  very  loving  household  though 
Mrs.  Clemens's  mother,  Mrs.  Langdon,  hardly  knows 
what  to  make  of  him  sometimes,  it  is  quite  evident. 

Thursday,  April  27,  1 876.  —  We  lunched  and  at  3 
P.M.  were  en  route  for  Hartford.  I  slept,  and  read  Mr. 
Tom  Appleton's  journal  on  the  Nile,  and  looked  out  at 
the  sunset  and  the  torches  of  spring  in  the  hollows,  each 
in  turn,  doing  more  sleeping  than  either  of  the  others, 
I  fear,  because  I  seem  for  some  unexplained  reason  to  be 
tired,  as  Mrs.  Hawthorne  used  to  say,  far  into  the  future. 
By  giving  up  to  it,  however,  I  felt  quite  fresh  when  we 
arrived,  at  half-past  seven  o'clock,  Mr.  Clemens'  (Mark 
Twain's)  carriage  waiting  for  us  to  take  us  to  the  hall 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  247 

where  he  was  to  perform  for  the  second  night  In  suc- 
cession Peter  Spyle  in  the  "Loan  of  a  Lover."  It  is  a 
pretty  play,  and  the  girl's  part,  Gertrude,  was  well 
done  by  Miss  Helen  Smith ;  but  Mr.  Clemens'  part 
was  a  creation.  I  see  no  reason  why,  if  he  chose  to  adopt 
the  profession  of  actor,  he  should  not  be  as  successful 
as  Jefferson  in  whatever  he  might  conclude  to  under- 
take. It  is  really  amazing  to  see  what  a  man  of  genius 
can  do  beside  what  is  usually  considered  his  legitimate 
sphere. 

Afterward  we  went  with  Mr.  Hammersley  to  the  Club 
for  a  bit  of  supper  —  this  I  did  not  wish  to  do,  but  I  was 
overruled  of  course  by  the  decision  of  our  host.  We  met 
at  supper  one  of  the  clever  actors  who  played  in  a  little 
operetta  called  "The  Artful  Mendicants."  It  was  after 
twelve  o'clock  when  we  finally  reached  Mr.  Clemens' 
house.  He  believed  his  wife  would  have  retired,  as  she 
is  very  delicate  in  health ;  but  there  she  was  expecting 
us,  with  a  pretty  supper  table  laid.  When  her  husband 
discovered  this,  he  fell  down  on  his  knees  in  mock  desire 
for  forgiveness.  His  mind  was  so  full  of  the  play,  and 
with  the  poor  figure  he  felt  he  had  made  in  it,  that  he 
had  entirely  forgotten  all  her  directions  and  injunctions. 
She  is  a  very  small,  sweet-looking,  simple,  finished 
creature,  charming  in  her  ways  and  evidently  deeply 
beloved  by  him.  The  house  is  a  brick  villa,  designed  by 
one  of  the  first  New  York  architects,  standing  in  a  lovely 
lawn  which  slopes  down  to  a  small  stream  or  river  at  the 
side.  In  this  spring  season  the  blackbirds  are  busy  in 
the  trees  and  the  air  is  sweet  and  vocal.   Inside  there  is 


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ISO  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

great  luxury.  Especially  I  delight  in  a  lovely  conserva- 
tory opening  out  of  the  drawing-room. 

Although  we  had  already  eaten  supper,  the  gentlemen 
took  a  glass  of  lager  beer  to  keep  Mrs.  Clemens  com- 
pany while  she  ate  a  bit  of  bread  after  her  long  anxiety 
and  waiting.  Meantime  Mr.  Clemens  talked.  The  quiet 
earnest  manner  of  his  speech  would  be  impossible  to 
reproduce,  but  there  is  a  drawl  in  his  tone  peculiar  to 
himself.  Also  he  is  much  interested  in  actors  and  the 
art  of  acting  just  now,  and  seriously  talks  of  going  to 
Boston  next  week  to  the  debut  of  Anna  Dickinson. 

We  were  a  tired  company  and  went  soon  to  bed  and 
to  sleep.  I  slept  late,  but  I  found  Mr.  Clemens  had  been 
re-reading  Dana's  "Two  Years  before  the  Mast"  in  bed 
early  and  revolving  subjects  for  his  "Autobiography." 
Their  two  beautiful  baby  girls  came  to  pass  an  hour 
with  us  after  breakfast  —  exquisite  affectionate  chil- 
dren, the  very  fountain  of  joy  to  their  interesting  par- 
ents. .  .  . 

Returning  to  lunch,  I  found  our  host  and  hostess 
and  eldest  little  girl  in  the  drawing-room.  We  fell  into 
talk  of  the  mishaps  of  the  stage  and  the  disadvantage  of 
an  amateur  under  such  circumstances.  "  For  instance, 
on  the  first  night  of  our  little  play,"  said  Mr.  Clemens, 
"the  trousers  of  one  of  the  actors  suddenly  gave  way 
entirely  behind,  which  was  very  distressing  to  him, 
though  we  did  not  observe  it  at  all." 

I  want  to  stop  here  to  give  a  little  idea  of  the  appear- 
ance of  our  host.  He  is  forty  years  old,  with  some  color 
in  his  cheeks  and  a  heavy  light-colored  moustache,  and 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  251 

overhanging  light  eyebrows.  His  eyes  are  grey  and 
piercing,  yet  soft,  and  his  whole  face  expresses  great 
sensitiveness.  He  is  exquisitely  neat  also,  though  care- 
less, and  his  hands  are  small,  not  without  delicacy. 
He  is  a  small  man,  but  his  mass  of  hair  seems  the  one 
rugged-looking  thing  about  him.  I  thought  in  the  play 
last  night  that  it  was  a  wig. 

To  return  to  our  lunch  table  —  he  proceeded  to  speak 
of  his  "Autobiography,"  which  he  intends  to  write  as 
fully  and  simply  as  possible  to  leave  behind  him.  His 
wife  laughingly  said  she  should  look  it  over  and  leave 
out  objectionable  passages.  "No,"  he  said,  very  ear- 
nestly, almost  sternly,  ^' you  are  not  to  edit  it  —  it  is  to 
appear  as  it  is  written,  with  the  whole  tale  told  as  truly 
as  I  can  tell  it.  I  shall  take  out  passages  from  it,  and 
publish  as  I  go  along  in  the  'Atlantic'  and  elsewhere, 
but  I  shall  not  limit  myself  as  to  space,  and  at  whatever 
age  I  am  writing  about,  even  if  I  am  an  infant,  and  an 
idea  comes  to  me  about  myself  when  I  am  forty,  I  shall 
put  that  in.  Every  man  feels  that  his  experience  is  un- 
like that  of  anybody  else,  and  therefore  he  should  write 
it  down.  He  finds  also  that  everybody  else  has  thought 
and  felt  on  some  points  precisely  as  he  has  done,  and 
therefore  he  should  write  it  down." 

The  talk  naturally  branched  to  education,  and  thence 
to  the  country.  He  has  lost  all  faith  in  our  government. 
This  wicked  ungodly  suffrage,  he  said,  where  the  vote 
of  a  man  who  knew  nothing  was  as  good  as  the  vote 
of  a  man  of  education  and  industry ;  this  endeavor  to 
equalize  what  God  had  made  unequal  was  a  wrong  and 


252  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

a  shame.  He  only  hoped  to  live  long  enough  to  see  such 
a  wrong  and  such  a  government  overthrown.  Last 
summer  he  wrote  an  article  for  the  "Atlantic,"  printed 
without  any  signature,  proposing  the  only  solution  of 
such  evil  of  which  he  could  conceive.  "It  is  too  late 
now,"  he  continued,  "to  restrict  the  suffrage;  we  must 
increase  it  —  for  this  let  us  give  every  university  man, 
let  us  say,  ten  votes,  and  every  man  with  common- 
school  education  two  votes,  and  a  man  of  superior 
power  and  position  a  hundred  votes,  if  we  choose.  This 
is  the  only  way  I  see  to  get  out  of  the  false  position 
into  which  we  have  fallen." 

At  five,  the  hour  appointed  for  dinner,  I  returned  to 
the  drawing-room  where  our  host  lay  at  full  length  on 
the  floor  with  his  head  on  cushions  in  the  hay-window, 
reading,  and  taking  what  he  called  "delicious  comfort." 
Mrs.  Perkins  came  in  to  dinner,  and  we  had  a  cosy  good 
time.  Mr.  Clemens  described  the  preaching  of  a  West- 
ern clergyman,  a  great  favorite,  with  the  smallest  pos- 
sible allowance  of  idea  to  the  largest  possible  amount  of 
words.  It  was  so  truthfully  and  vividly  portrayed  that 
we  all  concluded,  perhaps,  since  the  man  was  in  such 
earnest,  he  moved  his  audience  more  than  if  he  had 
troubled  them  with  too  many  ideas.  This  truthfulness 
of  Mr.  Clemens,  which  will  hardly  allow  him  to  portray 
anything  in  a  way  to  make  out  a  case  by  exaggerating 
or  distorting  a  truth,  is  a  wondrous  and  noble  quality. 
This  makes  art  and  makes  life,  and  will  continue  to 
make  him  a  daily  increasing  power  among  us. 

He  is  so  unhappy  and  discontented  with  our  govern- 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  253 

ment  that  he  says  he  Is  not  conscious  of  the  least  emo- 
tion of  patriotism  in  himself.  He  is  overwhelmed  with 
shame  and  confusion  and  wishes  he  were  not  an  Amer- 
ican. He  thinks  seriously  of  going  to  England  to  live  for 
a  while,  at  least,  and  I  think  it  not  unlikely  he  may 
discover  away  from  home  a  love  of  his  country  which 
is  still  waiting  to  be  unfolded.  I  believe  hope  must  dawn 
for  us,  that  so  much  earnest  endeavor  of  our  statesmen 
and  patriots  cannot  come  to  naught ;  and  perhaps  the 
very  idea  he  has  dropped,  never  believing  that  it  can 
bring  forth  fruit,  will  be  adopted  in  the  end  for  our  sal- 
vation. Certainly  women's  suffrage  and  such  a  change 
as  he  proposes  should  be  tried,  since  we  cannot  keep  the 
untenable  ground  of  the  present.  .  .  . 

It  is  most  curious  and  interesting  to  watch  this  grow- 
ing man  of  forty  —  to  see  how  he  studies  and  how  high 
his  aims  are.  His  conversation  is  always  earnest  and 
careful,  though  full  of  fun.  He  is  just  now  pondering 
much  upon  actors  and  their  ways.  Raymond,  who  is 
doing  the  "Gilded  Age,"  is  so  hopelessly  given  "to 
saving  at  the  spigot  and  losing  at  the  bung-hole"  that 
he  is  evidently  not  over-satisfied  nor  does  he  count  the 
acting  everything  it  might  be. 

We  sat  talking,  chiefly  we  women,  after  dinner  and 
looking  at  the  sunset.  Mr.  Clemens  lay  down  with  a 
book  and  J.  went  to  look  over  his  lecture.  I  did  not 
go  to  lecture,  but  after  all  were  gone  I  scribbled  away  at 
these  pages  and  nearly  finished  Mr.  Appleton's  "Nile 
Journal."  They  returned  rather  late,  it  was  after  ten, 
bearing  a  box  of  delicious  strawberries,  Mrs.  Colt's  gift 


254  MKMUKIi:S  UV  A  HOSTESS 

from  her  endless  greenhouses.  They  were  a  sensation ; 
the  whole  of  summer  was  foreshadowed  by  their  scarlet 
globes.  Some  beer  was  brought  for  Mr.  Clemens  (who 
drinks  nothing  else,  and  as  he  cats  but  little  this  seems 
to  answer  the  double  end  of  nourishment  and  soothing 
for  the  nerves)  and  he  began  again  to  talk.  He  said  it 
was  astonishing  what  subjects  were  missed  by  the  Poet 
Laureate.  He  thought  the  finest  incident  of  the  Crimean 
War  had  been  certainly  ovcrlcxjkcd.  That  w.as  the  going 
down  at  sea  of  the  man  of  war,  Berkeley  Castle.  The 
ship  with  a  whole  regiment,  one  of  the  finest  of  the  Eng- 
lish army,  on  board,  struck  a  rcKk  near  the  Bosphorus. 
There  was  no  help  —  the  bottom  was  out  and  the  boats 
would  only  hold  the  crew  and  the  other  helpless  ones; 
there  was  no  chance  for  the  soldiers.  The  Colonel  sum- 
moned them  on  deck  ;  he  told  them  the  duty  of  soldiers 
was  to  die;  they  would  do  their  duty  as  bravely  there 
as  if  they  were  on  the  battle-field.  He  bade  them  shoul- 
der arms  and  prepare  for  action.  The  drums  beat,  flags 
were  flying,  the  service  playing,  as  they  all  went  down  to 
silent  death  in  the  great  deep. 

.Afterward  Mr.  Clemens  described  to  us  the  reappear- 
ance before  his  congregation  of  an  old  clergyman  who 
had  been  incapacitated  for  work  during  twelve  years  — 
coming  suddenly  into  the  pulpit  just  as  the  first  hymn 
was  ended.  The  younger  pastor  proposed  they  should 
sing  the  old  man's  favorite,  "Coronation,"  omitting  the 
first  verse.  He  heard  nothing  of  the  omission,  but  be- 
ginning at  the  first  verse  he  sang  in  a  cracked  treble  the 
remaining  stanza  after  all  the  people  were  still.    There 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  2^^ 

was  a  mingling  of  the  comic  and  pathetic  in  this  inci- 
dent which  made  it  consonant  with  the  genius  of  our 
host.  Our  dear  little  hostess  complained  of  want  of  air, 
and  I  saw  she  was  very  tired,  so  we  all  went  to  bed  about 
eleven. 

Saturday  morning.  —  Dear  J.  was  up  early  and  out  in 
the  beautiful  sunshine.  I  read  and  scribbled  until  break- 
fast at  half-past  nine.  It  was  a  lovely  morning,  and  I 
had  already  ventured  out  of  my  window  and  round  the 
house  to  hear  the  birds  sing  and  see  the  face  of  spring 
before  the  hour  came  for  breakfast.  When  I  did  go  to 
the  drawing-room,  however,  I  found  Mr.  Clemens  alone. 
He  greeted  me  apparently  as  cheerfully  as  ever,  and  it 
was  not  until  some  moments  had  passed  that  he  told 
me  they  had  a  very  sick  child  upstairs.  From  that  in- 
stant I  saw,  especially  after  his  wife  came  in,  that  they 
could  think  of  nothing  else.  They  were  half-distracted 
with  anxiety.  Their  messenger  could  not  find  the  doctor, 
which  made  matters  worse.  However,  the  little  girl  did 
not  really  seem  very  sick,  so  I  could  not  help  thinking 
they  were  unnecessarily  excited.  The  effect  on  them, 
however,  was  just  as  bad  as  if  the  child  were  really  very 
ill.  The  messenger  was  hardly  despatched  the  second 
time  before  Jamie  and  Mr.  Clemens  began  to  talk  of  our 
getting  away  in  the  next  train,  whereat  he  (Mr.  C.)  said 
to  his  wife,  "Why  did  n't  you  tell  me  of  that,"  etc.,  etc. 
It  was  all  over  in  a  moment,  but  in  his  excitement  he 
spoke  more  quickly  than  he  knew,  and  his  wife  felt  it. 
Nothing  was  said  at  the  time,  indeed  we  hardly  observed 
it,  but  we  were  intensely  amused  and  could  not  help 


i<^(i  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

finding  it  pathetic  too  afterward,  when  he  came  to  us  and 
said  he  spent  the  larger  part  of  his  hfe  on  his  knees  mak- 
ing apologies  and  now  he  had  got  to  make  an  apology  to 
us  about  the  carriage.  He  was  always  bringing  the  blood 
to  his  wife's  face  by  his  bad  behavior,  and  here  this  very 
morning  he  had  said  such  things  about  that  carriage  ! 
His  whole  life  was  one  long  apology.  His  wife  had  told 
him  to  see  how  well  we  behaved  (poor  we  !)  and  he  knew 
he  had  everything  to  learn. 

He  was  so  amusing  about  it  that  he  left  us  in  a  storm 
of  laughter,  yet  at  bottom  I  could  see  it  was  no  laugh- 
ing matter  to  him.  He  is  in  dead  earnest,  with  a  desire 
for  growth  and  truth  in  life,  and  with  such  a  sincere 
admiration  for  his  wife's  sweetness  and  beauty  of  char- 
acter that  the  most  prejudiced  and  hardest  heart  could 
not  fail  to  fall  in  love  with  him.  She  looked  like  an 
exquisite  lily  as  we  left  her.  So  white  and  delicate  and 
tender.  Such  sensitiveness  ami  self-control  as  she  pos- 
sesses are  very,  very  rare. 

May  Day.  —  Longfellow,  Greene,  Alexander  Agassiz 
and  Dr.  Holmes  dined  with  us.  This  made  summer, 
Longfellow  said  at  table  —  that  this  was  May  Day 
enough,  it  was  no  matter  how  cold  it  was  outside. 
(The  wind  outside  had  been  raging  all  day  and  winter 
seemed  to  be  giving  us  a  last  fling.)  Jamie  recalled  one 
or  two  things  "Mark  Twain"  had  said  which  I  have 
omitted.  When  he  lectured  a  few  weeks  ago  in  New 
York,  he  said  he  had  just  reached  the  middle  of  his  lec- 
ture and  was  going  on  with  flying  colors  when  he  saw  in 
the  audience  just  in  front  of  him  a  noble  gray  head  and 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  257 

beard.  "Nobody  told  me  that  William  Cullen  Bryant 
was  there,  but  I  had  seen  his  picture  and  I  knew  that 
was  the  old  man.  I  was  sure  he  saw  the  failure  I  was 
making,  and  all  the  weak  points  in  what  I  was  saying, 
and  I  could  n't  do  anything  more  —  that  old  man  just 
spoiled  my  work.  Then  they  told  me  afterward  that 
my  lecture  was  good  and  all  that;  I  could  only  say, 
'no,  no,  that  fine  old  head  spoiled  all  I  had  to  say  that 
night.'" 

Longfellow  was  quite  like  himself  again,  but  the  talk 
was  mainly  sustained  by  Dr.  Holmes  and  Mr.  Agassiz. 
When  Dr.  Holmes  first  came  in  he  looked  earnestly  at 
the  portrait  of  Sydney  Smith.  "It  reminds  me  of  our 
famous  story-teller,  Sullivan,"  he  said;  "it  is  full  of 
epicureanism.  The  month  is  made  J  or  kisses  and  canvas- 
backs .''  Later  on  in  the  dinner,  when  Mr.  Agassiz  was 
describing  the  fatigue  he  suffered  after  talking  Spanish 
all  day  while  he  still  understood  the  language  very  im- 
perfectly, "Why,"  said  Holmes,  "it  's  like  playing  the 
piano  with  mittens  on." 

There  was  something  pathetic  in  the  fact  of  this  young 
man  sitting  here  among  his  father's  friends,  almost 
in  the  very  place  his  father  had  filled  so  many  times  — 
but  his  speech  was  manly  and  wise,  from  a  full  brain. 
They  talked  of  the  spectroscope  as  on  the  whole  the 
most  important  discovery  the  world  had  known.  "Well, 
what  is  it?"  said  Longfellow.  "Explain  it  to  us."  (I 
was  glad  enough  to  have  him  ask.)  Agassiz  explained 
quite  clearly  that  it  was  an  instrument  to  discover  the 
elements  which  compose  the  sun,  and  proceeded  to  un- 


258  MEMORIES  OK  A  HOSTESS 

fold  its  working  in  some  detail.  Two  men  made  the  dis- 
covery simultaneously,  one  in  India  and  one  in  Eng- 
land. This  spectroscope  has  been  infinitely  improved, 
however,  by  every  living  mind  brought  to  bear  upon  it, 
almost,  since  its  first  so-called  discovery.  It  is  so  diffi- 
cult. Dr.  H.  said,  to  tell  where  an  invention  began  ;  you 
could  go  back  until  it  seemed  that  no  man  that  ever 
lived  really  did  it  —  like  some  verses,  whereupon  one  of 
Gray's  was  given  as  an  example.  The  talk  turned  some- 
what upon  the  manner  of  putting  things,  the  English 
manner  being  so  poor  and  inexpressive  compared  with 
the  southern  natures  —  the  French  being  the  masters  of 
expression. 

Longfellow  gave  a  delightful  account  of  the  old  artist 
and  spiritualist,  Kirkup,  the  discoverer  of  the  Dante 
portrait,  though  Greene  undertook  to  say  that  a  certain 
NVildc  was  the  man.  I  never  heard  anybody  else  have 
the  credit  but  Kirkup,  and  certainly  England  believes 
it  was  he. 

I  think  they  all  had  "a  good  time"  ;   I  am  sure  I  did. 


As  Mark  Twain,  in  the  preceding  pages  may  be  said  to 
have  led  the  reader  back  into  the  Boston  and  Cambridge 
circle,  so  there  were  constant  excursions  of  interest 
from  that  circle  out  into  the  world  in  which  such  a  man 
as  Sumner  stood  as  the  friend  of  such  another  as  Long- 
fellow. For  twenty-three  years,  from  1851  till  his  death 
in  1874,  Sumner  was  a  member  of  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  consequently  was  much  more  to  be  seen  in 


CHARLES  SU-MXER 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  259 

Washington  than  In  the  state  he  represented.  He  ap- 
pears from  time  to  time  in  the  pages  of  Mrs.  Fields's 
diary,  and  in  the  two  ensuing  passages  figures  first  at 
her  Boston  dinner-table  and  then  in  Washington-. 

Saturday^  November  18,  1865.  —  Last  night  Miss  Kate 
Field  and  Charles  Sumner  dined  with  us.  Before  we 
went  to  dinner  Charlotte  Foster,  the  young  colored  girl 
whom  Elizabeth  Whittier  was  so  fond  of  and  who  is  now 
secretary  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  came  in  to  call. 
She  is  very  pretty  and  good.  It  is  difficult  nevertheless 
for  her  to  find  a  boarding-place.  People  do  not  readily 
admit  a  colored  woman  into  their  families.  I  shall  help 
her  to  find  a  good  home.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Sumner  opened  the  conversation  at  dinner  by 
asking  Miss  Field  to  tell  him  something  of  Mr.  Landor. 
She,  smiling,  said  that  was  difficult  now  because  she 
had  talked  and  written  so  much  of  him  that  she  hardly 
knew  what  was  left  unsaid.  Mr.  Sumner  described  his 
own  first  introduction  then  at  the  house  of  his  old 
friend,  Mr.  Kenyon,  in  London.  He  had  dropped  in 
there  by  accident,  but  was  positively  engaged  elsewhere 
at  dinner ;  before  he  left,  however,  he  was  able  to  parry 
skilfully  a  remark  aimed  at  the  Yankees,  which  tickled 
Mr.  Landor  and  made  him  try  to  hold  on  and  induce 
him  to  stay.  He  was  obliged  to  go  then,  however,  but 
he  returned  a  few  days  after  to  breakfast,  when  Landor 
asked  him  why  the  body  of  Washington  did  not  rest 
in  the  Capitol  at  Washington.  "Because,"  said  Mr. 
Sumner,  "his  family  wished  his  ashes  to  remain  at  Mt. 


iGo  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Vernon."  "Ashes,"  said  L.,  "his  body  was  not  burned ; 
why  do  you  say  'ashes,'  sir?"  "I  quoted,  'E'en  in  our 
ashes  live  their  wonted  fires,'  and  he  said  nothing  more 
at  the  time,  but,"  added  Mr.  Sumner,  "I  have  never 
used  'ashes'  since." 

Kate  Field  said  "his  wife  was  a  perfect  fiend";  but 
Mr.  Sumner  was  inclined  to  doubt  the  statement. 
"These  marriages  with  men  of  genius  are  hard,"  he  said, 
"because  genius  wins  the  race  in  the  end." 

Then  Kate  brought  the  authority  of  Mr.  Ikowning 
and  others  to  back  her  statement,  but,  referring  to  Mr. 
Landor's  temper,  she  said  that  while  the  Storys  were  at 
Siena  passing  the  summer  one  year,  the  Brownings  took 
a  villa  near  by  and  Mr.  Landor  lived  opposite,  while  she 
and  Miss  Isa  Blagdcn  went  down  to  make  the  Brown- 
ings a  visit.  During  their  stay  Mr.  Landor  fancied  that 
the  stock  of  tea  lately  purchased  for  his  use  was  poi- 
soned, and  threw  it  all  out  of  the  window.  The  Conta- 
dinc  reaped  the  benefit  of  this;  they  came  and  gath- 
ered it  up  like  a  flock  of  doves. 

Mr.  Sumner  spoke  of  the  high,  very  high  place  he  ac- 
corded to  Mr.  Landor  as  a  writer  of  prose.  He  had  been 
a  source  of  great  admiration  to  him  for  years,  he  said. 
As  long  ago  as  when  G.  \V.  Greene  was  living  in  Rome 
and  first  becoming  a  writer,  he  asked  Mr.  Sumner  what 
masters  of  prose  he  should  study.  "Then,"  said  Mr.  S., 
"you  remember  his  own  style  was  bad;  the  sentences 
apt  to  be  jumbled  up  together.  I  told  him  to  read  Bacoa, 
and  Hooker,  and  all  the  prose  of  Dryden  he  could  find 
in  the  prefaces  and  elsewhere,  and  Walter  Savage  Lan- 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  261 

dor;  and  my  reverence  for  Mr.  Landor  as  a  writer  of 
prose  has  never  diminished." 

Later  during  the  dinner,  talking  of  his  hfe  abroad,  Mr. 
Sumner  was  reminded  of  a  letter  he  had  received  from 
John  P.  Hale,  our  minister  plenipotentiary  to  Spain. 
He  said  for  a  number  of  years,  while  Mr.  Hale  was  in 
the  Senate,  whenever  appeals  came  from  our  foreign 
ministers  or  consuls  abroad  asking  for  increase  of  salary, 
Mr.  Hale  would  jump  up  and  say,  "Gentlemen  of  the 
Senate,  allow  me  to  say  I  would  engage  to  live  at  any 
point  in  Europe  upon  the  salary  now  granted  by  the 
Government.  It  is  no  economy,  indeed  it  is  a  great 
lack  of  economy,  to  think  of  raising  these  salaries." 

"Hereupon  comes  a  letter  from  Spain  urging  an 
increase  of  salary  in  terms  which  would  convulse  the 
Senate  with  laughter  after  the  protestations  they  have 
heard  so  often.  I  should  like  nothing  better  than  to 
read  it  to  them."  For  the  lack  of  their  presence,  how- 
ever, he  read  it  to  us,  and  it  was  amusing  truly,  as  if  the 
old  days  and  speeches  were  a  blank. 

Mr.  Sumner  easily  slipped  from  this  subject  into 
others  connected  with  the  Government. 

Kate  Field  said  that  Judge  Russell  told  her  that 
President  Johnson  was  no  better  than  a  sot,  and  that 
the  head  of  the  Washingtonian  Home  (a  refuge  for  in- 
ebriates here)  had  been  sent  for,  as  a  man  having  skill 
in  such  cases,  to  try  to  save  him.  "Is  this  true,  Mr. 
Sumner  ?"  she  asked.  Mr.  Sumner  said  not  one  word  at 
first;  then  asked,  "What  authority  had  Judge  Russell 
for  making  such  an  assertion  ? "    Kate  did  not  know. 


262  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

and  I  thought  on  the  whole  Mr.  Sumner,  who  knew  the 
man  had  really  been  sent  for  by  the  President  himself, 
it  is  supposed  for  some  other  reason,  doubted  the  whole 
tale.  I  doubted  it  sincerely  from  the  first  moment, 
and  I  wonder  a  man  can  be  left  to  say  such  things. 

Sumner  then  continued  to  describe  very  vividly  what 
he  had  known  of  Andy  Johnson's  behavior.  When  he 
left  Tennessee  to  come  to  Washington  to  be  Vice-Presi- 
dent, he  travelled  with  a  negro  servant  and  two  demi- 
johns of  whiskey  which  he  dispensed  freely,  drinking 
enough  himself  at  the  same  time  to  arrive  at  Washing- 
ton in  a  maudlin  condition,  in  which  state  he  remained 
until  after  the  fourth  of  March.  He  was  then  living  at 
the  hotel,  and  a  young  Massachusetts  officer,  who  lived 
on  the  same  floor  and  was  obliged  to  pass  Mr.  Johnson's 
door  many  times  a  day,  told  Mr.  S.  that  during  the  two 
days  subsequent  to  Mr.  Johnson's  arrival  he  saw,  while 
passing  his  room,  and  counted  twenty-six  glasses  of 
whiskey  go  in.  At  length  good  men  interfered ;  they 
saw  delirium  tremens  or  some  other  dreadful  thing 
would  be  the  result  if  this  continued,  and  old  Mr.  Blair 
went  with  Mr.  Preston  King  and  persuaded  Mr.  John- 
son to  go  down  and  stay  at  Mr.  Blair's  house,  and  he 
surrendered  at  discretion.  It  was  a  small  house  and  a 
very  quiet  family,  but  they  stowed  Mr.  Johnson  away 
and  Mr.  King  also,  who  was  kind  enough  to  offer  to 
take  care  of  him.  Shortly  after  this  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
Mr.  Sumner  had  gone  down  the  river  in  a  yacht,  and 
had  landed  at  General  Grant's  headquarters.  They 
were  sitting  together  at  two  desks  reading  the  papers 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  263 

for  the  day  when  Mr.  Sumner  observed  a  figure  darken 
the  door,  and  looking  up  found  Mr.  Johnson.  "Ah,  Mr. 
Vice-President,  how  do  you  do,"  he  said,  putting  his 
papers  aside.  "Mr.  President,  here  is  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent." Mr.  Lincoln  arose  and  extended  his  hand,  but  as 
Mr.  Sumner  thought  very  coldly,  and  after  a  short  time 
they  started  again  for  their  yacht.  Mr.  Johnson  walked 
as  far  as  the  wharf,  talking  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  when 
they  arrived  there,  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  say,  "  Come  with 
us  and  have  lunch,"  or  "Come  at  night  and  have  din- 
ner," but  bade  him  simply  "Good-bye"  there,  where 
they  observed  him  afterward  watching  their  departure 
with  Mr.  King  by  his  side,  who  had  come  to  rejoin  him. 

"This,"  said  Mr.  Sumner,  "is  all  Mr.  Lincoln  saw 
of  Mr.  Johnson.  One  week  after  this  time  the  President 
was  assassinated,  and  they  never  met  from  that  hour 
until  his  death." 

Mr.  Sumner  thinks  Mr.  Beecher  is  making  a  danger- 
ous and  deadly  mistake,  and  told  him  so.  He  said  fur- 
ther to  Mr.  B.  that  his  anxieties  prevented  him  from 
sleeping,  that  he  had  not  slept  for  three  nights.  "I 
should  think  so,"  Mr.  Beecher  replied,  "you  talk  like 
a  man  who  had  been  deprived  of  his  natural  rest."  The 
two  men  have  a  respect  for  each  other  and  talk  kindly 
of  each  other,  but  they  do  not  see  things  from  the 
same  point  of  view  now  at  all. 

Friday  morning^  March  21,  1872.  —  L.  W.  J.  and  her 
daughter  met  us  at  the  cars  [in  New  York]  bound  to  go 
with  us  to  Washington.  A  pleasant  day's  journey  we 
had  of  it  with  their  friendly  faces  to  accompany  us  and 


-64  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

with  Colonel  Winthrop  to  meet  us  at  the  train.  The 
evening  of  our  arrival  Jamie  went  at  once  to  see  Charles 
Sumner  who  lives  in  a  fine  house  adjoining  our  hotel. 
Nothing  could  be  finer  than  the  situation  he  has  chosen. 
He  kept  J.  until  midnight  and  tried  to  detain  him  still 
longer,  but  the  knowledge  that  I  was  waiting  for  him 
made  him  insist  at  length  upon  coming  away.  He  found 
him  better  in  health  than  he  had  supposed  from  the 
newspapers,  and  "the  same  old  Sumner,"  as  Jamie 
said. 

Saturday  morning  I  went  in  early  with  J.  and  passed 
the  entire  morning  with  the  Senator.  Several  colored 
persons  came  in  as  we  sat  there,  and  those  who  were 
people  of  eminence  were  introduced.  He  talked  of  lit- 
erature and  showed  us  his  own  curiosities  which  appear 
to  be  numberless.  Jamie  was  called  away,  but  he  urged 
me  to  stay.  He  said  he  had  sent  a  message  to  the  Sen- 
ate which  required  a  reply  and  he  expected  every  mo- 
ment to  hear  the  sound  of  hoofs  on  the  pavement,  as 
he  had  requested  a  special  messenger  to  be  sent  on 
horseback.  The  messenger  did  not  arrive,  but  I  stayed 
on  all  the  same  until  his  carriage  came  to  take  him  to 
the  Capitol,  when  he  insisted  that  I  should  accompany 
him.  He  showed  me  all  the  wonders  of  the  place,  not 
forgetting  the  doors  which  Crawford  never  lived  even 
to  design  in  clay  altogether,  but  which  his  wife,  de- 
siring to  have  the  money,  caused  to  be  finished  by  her 
husband's  workmen  and  foisted  upon  our  Government. 
They  are  poor  enough.  Sumner  opposed  her  in  what  he 
considered  a  dishonest  attempt  to  get  money,  but  of 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  265 

course  he  could  not  make  an  open  opposition  of  this 
nature  against  a  lady,  the  widow  of  his  friend. 

Sumner's  character  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary 
pictures  of  opposing  elements  ever  combined  in  one 
person.  He  is  so  possessed  by  Sumner  that  there  is 
really  no  room  for  the  fair  existence  of  another  in  his 
world.  Position,  popularity,  domestic  happiness,  health, 
have  one  by  one  been  cut  away  from  him,  but  he  still 
stands  erect,  with  as  large  a  faith  in  Sumner  and  with 
as  determined  a  look  toward  the  future  as  if  it  beckoned 
him  to  glory  and  happiness.  I  suppose  he  must  believe 
that  the  next  turn  of  Fortune's  wheel  must  give  him  the 
favor  he  has  now  lost ;  but  were  he  another  man,  all  the 
honors  of  the  state  could  hardly  recompense  him  in  the 
least  for  what  he  has  lost.  He  has  a  firm  proud  spirit 
which  his  terrible  bodily  suffering  does  not  appear  to 
make  falter.  His  health  is  so  precarious  that  doubtless 
a  few  more  adverse  strokes  would  finish  him ;  but  he 
has  had  all  there  are  to  have,  one  would  say.  His 
friends,  however,  uphold  him  most  tenderly ;  letters 
from  dear  Mrs.  Child  and  others  lay  upon  his  table  urg- 
ing him  to  put  away  all  excitement  and  try  to  live  for 
the  service  of  the  state.  Public  honor,  probity,  the 
high  service  of  his  country  seem  to  be  the  passions  which 
animate  him  and  by  which  he  endures.  He  has  a  mania 
for  collecting  rare  books  and  pictures  nowadays  and  it 
is  almost  pitiful  to  see  how  this  fancy  runs  away  with 
him  and  how  he  must  frequently  be  deceived.  The 
tragedy  of  his  marriage  would  be  far  more  tragic  if  it 
had  left  any  scar  (as  far  as  mortal  can  discover)  save 


266  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

upon  his  pride.  I  would  not  do  a  man  whom  I  hold  in 
such  honor  any  injustice,  but  he  never  seemed  in  love. 

Sunday.  —  Not  well  —  kept  to  my  room  in  the  Ar- 
lington Hotel  all  day,  obliged  to  refuse  to  see  guests 
also,  and  dear  J.  has  gone  alone  to  dine  with  Sumner. 
I  had  hoped  to  see  his  home  once  more  and  to  see  him 
among  his  peers.  There  is  always  a  doubt  of  course, 
but  especially  in  his  state  of  health,  whether  we  may 
ever  meet  again.  If  not,  I  shall  not  soon  forget  his 
stately  carriage  at  the  Capitol  yesterday  nor  the  store 
he  sets  at  present  upon  his  counted  friends. 

He  pointed  out  the  great  avenue  named  Massachu- 
setts, and  the  school  house  named  after  himself,  with 
a  just  and  noble  pride  yesterday.  The  trees  are  all 
ready  to  burst  into  leaf.  Read  Bayard  Taylor's  Nor- 
wegian story,  "Lars"  —  very  sweet  and  fine  it  is  — 
just  missing  "an  excuse  for  being."  L.  J.  fills  us  with 
new  respect  and  regard.  Her  devotion  to  her  daughter 
is  so  perfect  and  so  wise. 

Jamie  returned  about  i  2  o'clock.  There  had  been  a 
gorgeous  dinner.  The  guests  were  Caleb  Cushing, 
Carl  Schurz,  Perley  Poore,  Mr.  Hill,  J.  T.  F.  The  serv- 
ice was  worthy  of  the  house  of  an  English  nobleman, 
the  feast  worthy  of  Lucullus.  It  fairly  astonished  J.  to 
see  Sumner  eat.  He  of  course  sat  at  S.'s  right.  Not  a 
wine,  nor  a  dish,  was  left  untasted  and  even  the  richest 
puddings  were  taken  in  large  quantities.  I  thought  of 
poor  Mrs.  Child  and  other  devout  admirers  of  this  their 
Republican  ( ! )  leader,  then  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  story 
of  Thackeray  at  dinner.    Some  day,  said  J.,  we  shall 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  267 

take  up  the  paper  and  find  Sumner  is  no  more,  and  it 
will  be  after  one  of  these  dinners. 

The  talk  astonished  J.,  utterly  unused  as  he  Is  to 
look  behind  the  scenes  of  government.  Caleb  Gushing, 
a  man  over  70,  who  appears  to  have  the  vigor  of  50, 
called  Stanton  "a  master  of  duplicity."  Galeb  Gushing 
said  Seward  was  the  first  man  who  introduced  ungentle- 
manly  bearing  into  the  Gablnet.  Until  he  came  there, 
there  was  no  smoking,  no  putting  up  of  the  feet,  but 
always  a  fine  courtesy  and  dignity  of  behavior  was 
preserved. 


Before  leaving  the  diaries  from  which  so  many  pages 
have  already  been  drawn,  before  letting  the  last  of  the 
familiar  faces  which  look  out  from  them  fade  again  from 
sight,  it  would  be  a  pity  not  to  assemble  a  few  entries 
recalling  notable  persons  of  whom  Mrs.  Fields  made 
fragmentary  but  significant  record.  Here,  for  instance, 
are  glimpses  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  fresh  from  the 
great  service  he  rendered  to  the  Union  cause  in  the 
Civil  War  by  his  speeches  in  England. 

Tuesday  J  November  17,  1863.  —  J.  T.  F.  saw  Mr. 
Kennard  today  and  we  heard  from  him  the  particulars 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  landing.  He  came  on  shore  in  the 
warm  fog  which  was  the  precursor  of  the  heavy  rain 
we  have  today,  at  3  o'clock  a.m.  of  Sunday.  He  went 
to  the  Parker  House  until  day  should  break  and  Mr. 
Kennard  could  come  and  take  him  to  the  retirement 


o68  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

of  Brookline,  to  pass  the  day  until  the  train  should 
leave  for  New  York.  News  of  his  arrival  getting  abroad, 
a  company  of  orthodox  deacons  waited  upon  him  very 
early  to  invite  him  to  preach.  "Gentlemen,  do  you  take 
me  for  a  fool,"  he  said,  "to  jump  so  readily  into  the 
harness  of  the  pulpit  even  before  the  fatigue  of  the  voy- 
age has  worn  away  ?"  He  heard  of  the  illness  of  one  of 
his  younger  children  and  therefore  hastened  as  quickly 
as  possible  toward  home. 

The  day  before  the  one  upon  which  he  was  to  speak 
at  Exeter  Hall  he  awoke  in  the  morning  with  a  heavy 
headache;  his  voice,  too,  was  seriously  impaired  by 
over-use.  He  wanted  to  speak,  his  whole  heart  was  in 
it,  yet  how  in  this  condition  ?  He  shut  himself  up  in  the 
house  all  that  day  and  hoped  for  better  things  and  went 
early  to  bed  that  night.  The  next  morning  at  dawn  he 
awoke,  he  opened  his  eyes  quickly.  "  Is  God  to  suffer  me 
to  do  this  work  ?"  He  leaped  from  the  bed  with  a  bound. 
His  head  was  clear  and  fresh,  but  his  voice  —  he  hardly 
dared  to  try  that.  "  I  will  speak  to  my  sister  tliree  thou- 
sand miles  away,"  he  said,  and  cried,  "Harriet."  The 
tones  were  clear  and  strong.  "Thank  God  !"  he  said  — 
then  speedily  dressed  —  trying  his  voice  again  and  again 
—  then  he  sat  down  and  wrote  off  the  heads  of  his  ad- 
dress. All  he  needed  to  say  came  freshly  and  purely  to 
his  mind  just  in  the  form  he  wished.  The  day  ebbed  away 
and  the  carriage  came  to  take  him  to  the  hall.  When 
he  descended  to  the  street,  to  his  surprise  there  was  a 
long  file  of  policemen,  through  whom  he  was  conducted 
because  of  the  crowds  waiting  about  his  door.    He  was 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  269 

obliged  to  descend  also  at  some  distance  from  Exeter 
Hall,  and  he  was  again  conducted  through  another  line 
of  police  before  he  reached  the  door.  The  people  pushed 
and  cried  out  so  that  he  ran  from  the  carriage  towards 
the  hall ;  and  one  of  the  staid  policemen,  observing  a 
man  running,  cried  out  and  caught  him  by  the  coat-tail 
saying  he  must  n't  run  there,  that  line  was  preserved 
for  the  great  speaker.  "Well,  my  friend,"  said  Mr. 
Beecher,  "I  can  tell  you  one  thing.  There  won't  be 
much  speaking  till  I  get  there."  While  he  hurried  on, 
he  felt  a  woman  lay  hold  of  the  skirts  of  his  coat.  The 
police,  seeing  her,  tried  to  push  her  away,  but  she  said 
to  one  of  them,  "I  belong  to  his  party."  Mr.  B.  said, 
"I  overheard  the  poor  thing,  but  I  thought  if  she  chose 
to  tell  a  lie  I  would  not  push  her  away ;  but  as  I  neared 
the  door  she  crept  up  and  whispered  to  me,  *  I  am  one 

of  your  people.     Don't  you  remember ,  a  Scotch 

woman  who  used  to  live  in  Brooklyn  and  go  to  the 
Plymouth  Church  ?  I  have  thought  of  this  for  weeks 
and  longed  and  dreamt  of  being  with  you  again.  Now 
my  desire  is  heard.'" 

The  rest  of  this  wonderful  night  the  public  journals 
and  his  own  letters  can  tell  us  of  —  have  told  us.  He 
has  been  as  it  were  a  man  raised  up  for  this  dark  hour  of 
our  dear  Country.  May  he  live  to  see  the  promised 
land,  and  not  only  from  the  top  of  Pisgah. 

December  10,  1863.  —  Visit  from  H.  W.  Beecher.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Beecher  did  not  like  Mr.  Browning.  He  found  him 
flippant  and  worldly.  To  be  sure  he  had  but  one  inter- 
view and  could  scarcely  judge,  but  had  he  met  the  man 


270  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

by  chance  in  a  company  he  should  never  have  sought 
him  a  second  time.  He  said  of  Charles  Lamb  that  he 
always  reminded  him  of  a  honeysuckle  growing  between 
and  over  a  rough  trellis;  it  would  cover  the  stakes,  it 
would  throw  out  blossoms  and  tendrils,  it  would  attract 
hummingbirds  and  make  corners  for  their  nests  and  fill 
the  wide  air  with  its  fragrance.  Such  was  C.  Lamb  to 
him. 

He  was  sure  he  could  have  liked  Mrs.  Browning  — 
so  credulous,  generous,  outspoken.  He  liked  strong 
outspoken  people,  yet  he  liked  serene  people  too;  but 
then,  he  loved  the  world  in  its  wide  variety. 

He  said  his  boy  wished  to  be  either  a  stage-driver  or  a 
missionary.  His  fancy  was  for  stage-driving ;  he  thought 
perhaps  his  duty  might  make  him  a  missionary.  .  .  . 

It  was  such  a  privilege  to  see  him  back  and  such  a 
privilege  to  grasp  his  hand,  I  could  say  nothing  but  be 
happy  and  thankful. 

A  few  years  later  a  passing  shape  from  still  an  earlier 
generation  casts  its  shadow  of  tragic  outline  across  the 
pages  of  the  diary. 

Simday,  January  6,  1867.  —  A  driving  snow-storm. 
Last  night  Jamie  went  to  the  Club ;  met  W.  Everett, 
who  said  that  while  his  father  was  member  of  Congress 
and  was  at  one  time  returning  from  Washington  to 
Boston  he  was  stopped  in  the  street  as  he  passed  through 
Philadelphia  by  a  haggard  man  wrapped  in  a  cloak.  "  I 
am  Aaron  Burr,"  said  the  figure,  "and  I  pray  you  to 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  271 

ask  Congress  for  an  appropriation  to  aid  me  in  my  mis- 
ery." Mr.  E.  replied  that  the  member  from  his  own 
district  was  the  person  to  whom  to  apply.  "I  know 
that,"  was  the  sad  rejoinder,  "but  the  others  are  all 
strangers  to  me  and  I  pray  you  to  help  me."  After  some 
reflection  Mr.  Everett  promised  to  try  to  do  something 
in  his  behalf;  fortunately,  however,  he  was  released  by 
death  before  Congress  was  again  in  session. 

Then  soon  appears  a  more  cheerful  figure,  in  the 
person  of  the  Rev.  Elijah  Kellogg  whose  lines  of  "Spar- 
tacus  to  the  Gladiators"  have  resounded  in  many  a 
schoolhouse.  His  tales  of  the  Stowes  and  the  family 
Bible  may  still  divert  a  generation  that  knows  not 
Spartacus. 

Thursday,  January  10,  1867.  —  Yesterday  J.  fell  in 
with  a  Mr.  Kellogg,  a  clergyman  from  Harpswell, 
Maine,  the  author  of  many  noble  things,  among  the 
rest,  of  the  "Speech  of  Spartacus"  which  is  in  Sargent's 
"School  Speaker,"  a  piece  of  which  the  boys  are  very 
fond,  but  the  masters  are  obliged  to  forbid  their  speak- 
ing it  because  it  always  takes  the  prize.  He  wrote  it 
while  in  college,  to  speak  himself.  He  went  to  school 
with  Longfellow,  though  he  is  younger  than  the  poet, 
and  the  latter  calls  him  a  man  of  genius.  He  is  a  preacher 
of  the  gospel  and  for  the  past  ten  months  has  been 
speaking  every  Sunday  at  the  Sailor's  Bethel  with  great 
effect.  He  called  to  see  J.  and  told  him  some  queer  anec- 
dotes regarding  his  sea-life.  He  dresses  like  a  fisherman. 


272  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

red  shirt,  etc.,  while  at  home.  He  remembers  Professor 
Stowe  and  his  wife  well.  He  says  their  arrival  at  Bruns- 
wick was  looked  for  with  eagerness  by  many,  with  some 
natural  curiosity  by  himself.  One  day  about  the  time 
they  were  expected  he  was  in  his  boat  floating  near  the 
pier  and  preparing  to  return  to  his  island  where  he  lives, 
as  the  tide  was  going  down  and  if  he  delayed  much 
longer  he  would  be  ashore ;  but  he  observed  a  woman 
sitting  on  a  cask  upon  the  wharf  swinging  her  heels, 
with  two  large  holes  the  size  of  a  dollar  each  in  the  back 
of  her  stockings,  a  man  standing  by  her  side,  and  sev- 
eral children  playing  about.  At  once  he  believed  it 
must  be  the  new  professor,  so  he  dallied  about  in  his 
boat  observing  them.  Presently  the  man  cried  out, 
"Hallo  there,  will  you  give  my  wife  a  sail  ?"  "I  can't," 
he  replied,  "there's  n(j  wind."  "Will  you  give  her  a  row 
then?"  "The  tide's  too  low  and  I  shan't  get  home." 
"Oh,"  said  the  woman,  "we  will  pay  you  ;  you  'd  better 
take  me  out  a  little  way."  "No,  I  can't,"  he  said. 
Presently  he  heard  somebody  say  something  about 
that 's  being  the  minister  and  not  a  fisherman  at  all. 
"Do  you  think  so?"  said  Mrs.  Stowe.  With  that  he 
dropped  down  into  the  bottom  of  his  boat  and  was  off 
before  another  word. 

He  told  Mr.  Fields  also  of  the  professor  who  preceded 
Professor  Stowe.  He  was  an  unmarried  man  with  three 
sisters,  all  of  whom  were  insane  at  times  and  frequently 
one  of  them  was  away  from  home  in  an  asylum.  One 
day  the  brother  was  away,  the  eldest  sister  being  at 
home  in  apparently  good  health,  when  another  pro- 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  273 

fessor  came  to  visit  them  to  whom  she  wished  to  be 
particularly  polite.  "What  will  you  have  for  dinner,'* 
said  she,  "today?"  "Oh!  the  best  thing  you've  got,'* 
he  replied.  So  when  dinner  came  she  had  stewed  the 
family  Bible  with  cabbage  for  his  repast.  He  speaks 
with  the  greatest  enthusiasm  of  the  beauty  of  that 
Maine  coast.  We  must  go  there. 

Out  of  what  seems  a  past  almost  pre-Augustan  come 
these  memories  of  N.  P.  Willis,  a  poet  who  suffered  the 
misfortune  of  outliving  much  of  his  own  fame. 

Thursday i  January  31,  1867.  —  The  papers  of  last 
night  brought  the  news  of  N.  P.  Willis's  death  and  that 
he  was  to  be  buried  in  Boston  from  St.  Paul's  Church 
today.  Early  this  morning  a  note  came  from  Mrs.  Willis 
asking  Mr.  Fields  to  see  Dr.  Howe  and  Edmund  Quincy, 
to  ask  them  to  be  pall-bearers  with  himself  and  Colonel 
Trimble.  Fortunately  last  night  J.  had  seen  the  an- 
nouncement, and  before  going  to  Longfellow's  made  up 
his  mind  to  ask  Longfellow  and  Lowell  to  come  in  to 
assist  at  the  ceremony  of  their  brother-author ;  he  had 
also  sent  to  Professor  Holmes  before  the  note  came  from 
Mrs.  Willis.  He  then  sent  immediately  for  the  others 
whom  she  mentioned  and  for  a  quantity  of  exquisite 
flowers.  All  his  plans  turned  out  as  he  had  arranged 
and  hoped  and  the  poet's  grave  was  attended  by  the 
noblest  America  had  to  offer.  The  dead  face  was  not 
exposed,  but  the  people  pressed  forward  to  take  a  sprig 
from  the  coffin  in  memory  of  one  who  had  strewn  many 


274  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

a  flower  of  thought  on  the  hard  way  of  their  lives.  There 
are  some  to  speak  hardly  of  Willis,  but  usually  the 
awe  of  death  ennobles  his  memory  to  the  grateful 
world  of  his  appreciators.  "Refrain  !  refrain  !"  we  long 
to  say  to  the  others  who  would  carp.  "If  you  have 
tears,  shed  them  on  the  poet's  grave." 

There  had  been  previously  an  exquisite  and  touch- 
ing service  at  Idlewild  where  Octavius  Frothingham  did 
all  a  man  could  do,  inspired  by  the  occasion  and  the 
loveliness  of  the  day  and  scene.  The  service  here  would 
have  seemed  cold  as  stone  except  for  the  gracious  poets 
who  surrounded  the  body  and  prevented  one  thought 
of  chill  lack  of  sympathy  from  penetrating  the  flowers 
with  which  it  was  covered.  I  could  not  restrain  my 
tears  when  I  remembered  a  few  years,  bnly  two,  and 
the  same  company  had  borne  Hawthorne's  body  to  its 
burial.  Which,  which,  of  that  beloved  and  worshipped 
few  was  next  to  be  borne  by  the  weeping  remnant ! ! 

Wednesday^  July  I,  1 868.  —  In  our  walk  yesterday  J. 
delighted  himself  and  me  by  rehearsing  his  memories  of 
Willis.  J.  was  at  the  Astor  House  when  Willis  returned 
first  from  Europe  with  his  young  bride.  He  was  then  the 
observed  of  all  observers.  As  in  those  days  travellers 
crossed  in  sailing  vessels,  his  coming  was  not  heralded ; 
the  first  that  was  known  of  their  arrival  was  when  he 
walked  into  the  Astor  with  his  beautiful  young  wife 
upon  his  arm.  He  wore  a  brown  cloak  thrown  grace- 
fully about  his  shoulders  and  was  a  man  to  remind  one 
of  Lady  Blessington's  saying,  "If  Willis  had  been  born 
to  £10,000  a  year  he  would  have  been  a  perfect  man." 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  275 

He  was  then  at  the  head  of  the  world  of  literature  in 
America ;  his  influence  could  do  anything  and  his  heart 
and  purse  were  both  at  the  service  of  the  needy  asker. 
Unfortunately  from  the  first  he  never  paid  his  debts. 
J.  said  he  never  believed  the  tales  of  Willis's  dissipa- 
tion. He  spent  money  freely  even  when  he  had  it  not. 
All  the  English  folk,  lords  and  ladies,  who  then  came 
to  see  America  were  the  guests  of  Willis. 

I  asked  what  his  wife  was  like !  "Like  a  seraph.  She 
was  lovely  with  all  womanly  attractions." 

Of  the  various  "causes"  to  which  Mrs.  Fields  and 
her  husband  paid  allegiance,  the  cause  of  equal  oppor- 
tunity for  men  and  women  cannot  justly  be  left  unmen- 
tioned.  They  espoused  it  before  its  friends  were  taken 
with  the  seriousness  they  have  long  commanded,  and,  as 
the  following  passage  will  suggest,  were  full  of  sym- 
pathy with  those  who  fought  its  early  battles.  The  im- 
pact of  one  of  these  combatants,  Mrs.  Mary  A.  Liver- 
more,  a  reformer  in  sundry  fields,  against  the  rock  of 
conservatism  represented  by  the  President  of  Harvard 
College,  is  the  subject  of  a  lively  bit  of  record. 

September  22,  1876.  —  At  four  came  Miss  Phelps,  at 
six  came  Mrs.  Livermore.  Ah !  She  is  indeed  a  great 
woman  —  a  strong  arm  to  those  who  are  weak,  a  new 
faith  in  time  of  trouble.  She  came  to  tea  as  fresh  as  if 
she  had  been  calmly  sunning  herself  all  the  week  in- 
stead of  speaking  at  a  great  meeting  at  Faneuil  Hall 
the  previous  evening  and  taking  cold  in  the  process. 


276  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

She  talked  most  wittily  and  brilliantly,  beside  laughing 
most  heartily  and  merrily  over  all  dear  J.'s  absurd  sto- 
ries and  illustrations.  He  told  her  of  a  woman  who  came 
to  speak  to  him  after  one  of  his  lectures,  to  thank  him 
for  what  he  was  trying  to  do  for  the  education  of  women. 
She  said,  "I  was  educated  at  home  with  my  brothers 
and  taught  all  they  were  taught,  learning  my  lessons  by 
their  side  and  reciting  with  them  until  the  time  came  for 
them  to  go  to  college.  Nobody  ever  told  me  I  was  not 
to  go  to  college  !  And  when  the  moment  arrived  and  it 
dawned  upon  me  that  I  was  to  be  left  behind  to  do 
nothing,  to  learn  nothing  more,  I  was  terribly  un- 
happy." 

"I  know  just  how  she  felt,"  said  Mrs.  Livermore; 
"there  was  a  party  of  six  of  us  girls,  sisters  and  cousins, 
who  had  studied  with  our  brothers  up  to  the  time  for 
going  to  college.  We  were  all  ready,  but  what  was  to  be 
done  ?  We  were  told  that  no  girls  had  entered  Harvard 
thus  far.  We  said  to  each  other,  we  six  girls  will  go  to 
Cambridge  and  call  upon  President  Quincy,  show  him 
where  we  stand  in  our  lessons,  and  ask  him  to  admit 
us.  I  was  the  youngest  of  the  party.  I  was  noted  for 
being  rather  hot  and  intemperate  in  speech  in  those 
days,  and  the  girls  made  me  promise  before  we  left  the 
house  [not  to  speak]  —  'For  as  sure  as  you  do,'  they 
said,  'you  will  spoil  all.'  So  I  promised,  and  we  went  to 
Cambridge  and  found  Mr.  Quincy.  The  girls  laid  their 
proposition  before  him  as  clearly  as  they  dared,  by 
showing  him  what  they  had  done  in  their  lessons.  '  Very 
smart  girls,  unusually  capable  girls,'  he  said  encourag- 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  277 

ingly ;  ' but  can  you  cook  ? '  'Oh,  yes,  sir,'  said  one, '  we 
have  kept  house  for  some  time.'  'Highly  important,' 
he  said ;  and  so  on  during  the  space  of  an  hour." 

Mrs.  Livermore  said  she  found  he  was  toying  with 
them  and  they  were  as  far  away  from  the  subject  in 
their  minds  as  the  moment  they  arrived,  and,  forgetting 
her  promise  of  silence,  she  said :  " '  But,  Mr.  Quincy, 
what  we  came  to  ask  is,  will  you  allow  us  to  come  to 
college  when  our  brothers  do  ?  You  say  we  are  suffi- 
ciently prepared ;  is  there  anything  to  prevent  our 
admission  ? '  *  Oh,  yes,  my  dear,  we  never  allow  girls 
at  Harvard ;  you  know,  the  place  for  girls  is  at  home.' 
'Yes,  but,  Mr.  Quincy,  if  we  are  prepared,  we  would 
not  ask  to  recite,  but  may  we  not  attend  the  recitations 
and  sit  silent  in  the  classes  ? '  '  No,  my  dear,  you  may 
not.'  'Then  I  wish  —  '  'What  do  you  wish?'  he  said. 
*I  wish  I  were  God  for  one  instant,  that  I  might  kill 
every  woman  from  Eve  down  and  let  you  have  a  mas- 
culine world  all  to  yourselves  and  see  how  you  would 
like  that.'  Up  to  this  point  the  girls  had  been  kept  up 
by  excitement,  but  there  we  broke  down.  I  tried  the 
best  I  could  not  to  cry,  but  I  found  my  eyes  were  get- 
ting full,  and  the  only  thing  for  us  to  do  was  to  leave  as 
soon  as  we  could  for  home.  We  lived  in  the  vicinity  of 
Copp's  Hill  and  I  can  see,  as  distinctly  as  if  it  were 
yesterday,  the  room  looking  out  on  the  burial-ground 
in  which  we  all  sat  down  together  and  cried  ourselves 
half-blind.  'I  wish  I  was  dead,'  said  one.  'I  wish  I  had 
never  been  born,'  said  another.  'Martha,  get  up  from 
that  stone  seat,'  said  a  third ;  'you'll  get  cold.'  'I  don't 


278  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

care  if  I  do,'  said  Martha;  'I   shall  perhaps  die  the 
sooner.'   We  were  all  terribly  indignant." 

I  was  deeply  interested  in  this  history.  I  was  stand- 
ing over  the  cradle  of  woman's  emancipation  and  seeing 
it  rocked  by  the  hand  of  sorrow  and  indignation. 

Other  passages  might  be  cited  merely  to  illustrate  the 
skill  and  industry  of  Mrs.  Fields  in  reducing  to  narra- 
tive form  the  mass  of  reported  talk  of  one  sort  or  an- 
other which  her  husband  brought  home  to  her.  A  strik- 
ing instance  of  this  is  found  in  the  full  rendering  of  a 
story  told  by  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  to  Fields,  at  a  time  when 
they  were  discussing  a  new  edition  of  "Two  Years 
before  the  Mast."  It  is  a  long  dramatic  account  of 
Dana's  experience  on  a  burning  ship  in  the  Pacific, 
which  he  told  Fields  he  had  "never  yet  found  time  to 
write  down."  In  Charles  Francis  .Adams's  biography 
of  Dana,  the  bare  bones  of  the  story  are  preserved  in  a 
diary  Dana  was  keeping  during  the  voyage  in  which 
this  calamity  occurred.  If  .Adams  could  but  have  turned 
to  the  diary  of  Mrs.  Fields  for  1868,  he  would  have 
found  a  detailed  description  of  an  episode  in  Dana's 
lite  which  might  well  have  been  included  in  his  biog- 
raphy. 

Hut  the  if's  of  bookmaking  are  hardly  less  abundant 
than  those  of  history.  If,  for  a  single  instance,  this  were 
in  any  real  sense  a  biography  of  Mrs.  Fields,  it  would  be 
necessary  for  the  reader  to  explore  with  the  compiler  the 
journals  and  letters  written  during  two  visits  the 
Fieldses  made  to  Europe  in  1859  ^"^  1869.    But  this 


STAGE  FOLK  AND  OTHERS  279 

would  be  foreign  to  the  present  purpose,  which  has  not 
been  either  to  produce  a  biography,  or  to  evoke  all  the 
interesting  persons  known  to  Mrs.  Fields,  at  home  and 
abroad,  but  rather  to  present  them  and  her  against  her 

y    ^  Z/'       ''/'   y     ^ 


From  a  letter  of  Edward  Lear  s  to  Fields 

own  intimate  and  distinctive  background.  She  herself 
has  written,  in  her  "Authors  and  Friends,"  of  Tennyson 
and  Lady  Tennyson,  and  to  the  pictures  she  has  drawn 
of  them  it  would  be  easily  possible  to  add  fresh  lines 
from  the  unprinted  records  —  as  it  would  be,  also,  to 
bring  forth  passages  touching  upon  many  another  famil- 
iar figure  of  Victorian  England.  The  roving  lover  who 
justified  himself  by  singing  that 

They  were  my  visits,  but  thou  art  my  home, 

Stated,  in  essence,  the  principle  to  which  these  pages 
have  adhered.  The  frequenters  of  the  house  in  Charles 
Street  well  knew  that  something  of  its  color  and  flavor 


28o  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

was  derived  from  the  excursions  its  hostess  made  into 
other  scenes.  Yet  her  own  color  and  flavor  were  not 
those  of  the  visitor,  but  of  the  visited.  It  is  a  pity  that 
many  who  would  have  been  welcome  visitors  —  none 
more  than  Edward  Lear  —  never  came.  Even  as  it  is, 
there  is  ample  ground  for  laying  the  emphasis  of  this 
book  upon  the  panorama  of  a  picturesque  social  life 
chiefly  as  seen  from  within  the  hospitable  walls  of  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Fields.  When  he  died  in  i88l,  a  long  and 
happy  chapter  in  her  long  and  happy  life  came  to  its 
close. 


VII 

SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT 

Such  a  statement  about  Mrs.  Fields  as  that  she  "was 
to  survive  her  husband  many  years  and  was  to  flourish 
as  a  copious  second  volume  —  the  connection  licenses 
the  figure  —  of  the  work  anciently  issued,"  almost  iden- 
tifies itself,  without  remark,  as  proceeding  from  the 
same  friend,  Henry  James,  whose  words  have  colored  a 
previous  chapter  of  this  book.  The  many  years  to  which 
he  referred  were,  indeed,  nearly  thirty-four  in  number, 
about  a  third  of  a  century,  or  what  is  commonly  counted 
a  generation.  For  a  longer  period  than  that  through 
which  she  was  the  wife  of  James  T.  Fields,  she  was  thus 
his  widow.  Through  nearly  all  of  this  period  the  need 
of  her  nature  for  an  absorbing  affectionate  intimacy  was 
met  through  her  friendship  with  Sarah  Orne  Jewett. 
It  was  with  reference  to  her  that  Mrs.  Fields,  in  the 
preface  to  a  collection  of  Miss  Jewett's  letters,  published 
in  191 1,  two  years  after  her  death,  wrote  of  "the  power 
that  lies  in  friendship  to  sustain  the  giver  as  well  as  the 
receiver."  In  the  friendship  of  these  two  women  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  define  either  one,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  other,  as  the  giver  or  the  receiver. 
They  were  certainly  both  sustained  by  their  relation. 

Miss  Jewett,  born  in  South  Berwick,  Maine,  in  1849, 
and  continuously  identified  with  that  place  until  her 
death  in   1909,  first  entered  the  "Atlantic  circle"  in 


282  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

1869,  when  she  was  but  twenty  years  old,  and  Fields 
was  still  editor  of  the  magazine.  In  that  year  a  story 
by  her,  called  "Mr.  Bruce"  and  credited  in  the  index 
of  the  magazine  —  for  contributions  then  appeared 
unsigned  —  to  "A.  C.  Eliot,"  was  printed  in  the  "Atlan- 
tic." Four  years  later,  Consule  Hovoellsy  "The  Shore 
House,"  a  second  story,  appeared  over  her  own  name, 
the  practiceof  printing  signatures  havingmeanwhile  been 
instituted.  In  May,  1875,  the  "Atlantic"  contained  a 
poem  by  Miss  Jewett,  which  may  be  quoted,  not  so 
much  to  remind  the  readers  of  those  stories  of  New  Eng- 
land on  which  her  later  fame  was  based,  that  in  her 
earlier  years  she  was  much  given  to  the  writing  of  verse, 
as  to  explain  in  a  way  the  union  —  there  is  no  truer 
word  for  it  —  that  came  later  to  exist  between  herself 
and  Mrs.  Fields. 
Thus  it  read  :  — 

TOGETHER 

I  wonder  if  you  really  send 
Those  dreams  of  you  that  come  and  go! 

I  like  to  say,  "She  thought  of  me, 
And  I  have  known  it."     Is  it  so? 

Though  other  friends  walk  by  your  side, 

Vet  sometimes  it  must  surely  be, 
They  wonder  where  your  thoughts  have  gone. 

Because  I  have  you  here  with  me. 

And  when  the  busy  day  is  done 

And  work  is  ended,  voices  cease, 
When  every  one  has  said  good  night, 

In  fading  firelight,  then  in  peace 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  283 

I  Idly  rest :  you  come  to  me,  — 

Your  dear  love  holds  me  close  to  you. 
If  I  could  see  you  face  to  face 

It  would  not  be  more  sweet  and  true; 

I  do  not  hear  the  words  you  speak, 

Nor  touch  your  hands,  nor  see  your  eyes : 

Yet,  far  away  the  flowers  may  grow 
From  whence  to  me  the  fragrance  flies; 

And  so,  across  the  empty  miles 

Light  from  my  star  shines.     Is  it,  dear, 
Your  love  has  never  gone  away  ? 

I  said  farewell  and  —  kept  you  here. 


It  was  not  strange  that  the  writer  of  just  such  a  poem 
should  have  seemed  to  Fields,  before  his  death  in  1881, 
the  ideal  friend  to  fill  the  impending  gap  in  the  life  of  his 
wife.  He  must  have  known  that,  when  the  time  should 
come  for  readjusting  herself  to  life  without  him,  she 
would  need  something  more  than  random  contacts  with 
friends,  no  matter  how  rewarding  each  such  relation- 
ship might  be.  He  must  have  realized  that  the  intensely 
personal  element  in  her  nature  would  require  an  outlet 
through  an  intensely  personal  devotion.  If  he  could 
have  foreseen  the  relation  that  grew  up  between  Mrs. 
Fields  and  Miss  Jewett  —  her  junior  by  about  fifteen 
years  —  almost  immediately  upon  his  death,  and  con- 
tinued throughout  the  life  of  the  younger  friend,  he 
would  surely  have  felt  a  great  security  of  satisfaction  in 
what  was  yet  to  be.  In  all  her  personal  manifestations, 
and  in  all  her  work.  Miss  Jewett  embodied  a  quality  of 
distinction,  a  quality  of  the  true  aristophile^  —  to  em- 


284  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

ploy  a  term  which  has  seemed  to  me  before  to  fit  that 
small  company  of  lovers  of  the  best  to  which  these  ladies 
preeminently  belonged,  —  that  made  them  foreordained 
companions.  To  Mrs.  Fields  it  meant  much  to  stand  in 
a  close  relation  —  apart  from  all  considerations  of  a 
completely  uniting  friendship  —  with  such  an  artist  as 
Miss  Jewett,  to  feel  that  through  sympathy  and  en- 
couragement she  was  furthering  a  true  and  permanent 
contribution  to  American  letters.  To  Miss  Jewett, 
whose  life,  before  this  intimacy  began,  had  been  led 
almost  entirely  in  the  Maine  village  of  her  birth,  —  a 
village  of  dignity  and  high  traditions  that  were  her 
own  inheritance,  —  there  came  an  extension  of  in- 
terests and  stimulating  contacts  through  finding  her- 
self a  frequent  member  of  another  household  than  her 
own,  and  that  a  very  nucleus  of  quickening  human 
intercourse.  To  pursue  her  work  of  writing  chiefly  at 
South  Berwick,  to  come  to  Boston,  or  Manchester,  for 
that  freshening  of  the  spirit  which  the  creative  writer  so 
greatly  needs,  and  there  to  find  the  most  sympathetic 
and  devoted  of  friends,  also  much  occupied  herself 
with  the  writing  of  books  and  with  all  commerce  of  vital 
thoughts  —  what  could  have  afforded  a  more  delight- 
ful arrangement  of  life  ? 

Even  as  early  as  1881,  the  year  of  Fields's  death. 
Miss  Jewett  published  the  fourth  of  her  many  books, 
"Country  By-Ways,"  preceded  by  "Deephaven" 
(1877),  "Play  Days"  (1878),  and  "Old  Friends  and 
New"  (1879).  From  1881  onward  her  production  was 
constant  and  abundant.   In  188 1  also  began  a  period  of 


H^^^^^^^HI^^^BSfl  '"'              '"VBHBI^H^BI^H^ 

1 1 1 

SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  285 

remarkable  productiveness  on  the  part  of  Mrs.  Fields. 
In  that  very  year  of  her  husband's  death  she  published 
both  her  "James  T.  Fields:  Biographical  Notes  and 
Personal  Sketches,"  and  a  second  edition  of  "Under  the 
Olive,"  a  small  volume  in  which  she  had  brought  to- 
gether in  1880  a  number  of  poems  in  which  the  influence 
of  the  Greek  and  English  poets  is  sometimes  manifested 
—  notably  in  "Theocritus"  —  to  excellent  purpose. 
If  Mrs.  Fields  had  been  a  poet  of  distinctive  power,  the 
fact  would  long  ago  have  established  itself.  To  make 
any  such  claim  for  her  at  this  late  day  would  be  to  de- 
part from  the  purpose  of  this  book.  It  was  for  the  most 
part  rather  as  a  friend  than  as  a  daughter  of  the  Muses 
that  she  turned  to  verse,  the  medium  of  utterance  for  so 
many  of  that  nest  of  singing-birds  in  which  her  life  was 
passed.  In  1883  came  her  little  volume  "How  to  Help 
the  Poor,"  representing  an  interest  in  the  less  fortunate 
which  prepared  her  to  become  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
Associated  Charities  of  Boston,  kept  her  long  active  and 
influential  in  the  service  of  that  organization,  and  made 
her  at  the  last  one  of  its  generous  benefactors.  In  1895 
and  1900,  respectively,  appeared  two  more  volumes  of 
verse,  "The  Singing  Shepherd  and  Other  Poems," 
assembling  the  work  of  earlier  and  later  years,  and 
"Orpheus,  a  Masque,"  each  strongly  touched,  like 
"Under  the  Olive,"  with  the  Grecian  spirit.  From 
"The  Singing  Shepherd"  I  cannot  resist  quoting  one  of 
the  best  things  it  contains  —  a  sonnet,  "Flamman- 
tis  Moenia  Mundi,"  under  which,  in  my  own  copy  of 
the  book,  I  find  the  penciled  note,  written  probably 


286  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

more  than  twenty  years  ago :  "Mrs.  Fields  tells  me  that 
this  sonnet  came  to  her  complete,  one  may  almost  say; 
standing  on  her  feet  she  made  it,  but  for  one  or  two 
small  changes,  just  as  it  is,  in  about  fifteen  minutes." 

I  stood  alone  in  purple  space  and  saw 
The  burning  walls  of  the  world,  like  wings  of  flame, 
Circling  the  sphere;  there  was  no  break  nor  flaw 
In  those  vast  airy  battlements  whence  came 
The  spirits  who  had  done  with  time  and  fame 
And  all  the  playthings  of  earth's  little  hour; 
I  saw  them  each,  I  knew  them  for  the  same. 
Mothers  and  brothers  and  the  sons  of  power. 

Yet  were  they  changed;  the  flaming  walls  haii  burneil 

Their  perishable  selves,  and  there  rcmaineil 

Only  the  pure  white  vision  of  the  soul. 

The  mortal  part  consumed,  and  swift  returnetl 

Ashes  to  ashes;  while  unscathed,  unstained, 

The  immortal  passed  beyond  the  earth's  control. 

I'or  the  rest,  her  writings  may  be  said  to  have  grown 
out  of  the  life  which  the  pages  of  her  diary  have  pic- 
tured. The  successive  volumes  were  these  :  "Whittier  : 
Notes  of  his  Life  and  of  his  Friendship"  (New  York, 
1893);  "A  Shelf  of  Old  Books"  (New  York,  1894); 
"Letters  of  Celia  Thaxter"  (edited  with  Miss  Rose 
Lamb,  Boston,  1895) ;  "Authors  and  Friends"  (Boston, 
1896);  "Life  and  Letters  of  Harriet  Bcecher  Stowe" 
(Boston,  1897) ;  "Nathaniel  Hawthorne"  (in  the  "Bea- 
con Biographies,"  Boston,  1899);  "Charles  Dudley 
Warner"  (New  York,  1909) ;  and,  after  the  death  of 
the  friend  whose  name  appears  above  this  chapter, 
"Letters  of  Sarah  Orne  Jewett"  (Boston,  1911). 

This  catalogue  of  publications  is  in  itself  a  dry  bit  of 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  287 

reading,  and  to  add  the  titles  of  all  the  books  produced 
by  Miss  Jewett  after  1881  would  not  enliven  the  record. 
But  the  lists,  explicit  and  implicit,  will  serve  at  least 
to  suggest  the  range  and  nature  of  the  activities  of 


/ic-  '^/Wy    /<!^J  ^o3l    ^f^f>oi  ii^^  /^^    /E^*^^^>^**^ 
^  ^Ot-iJ  ^^^  J^j>9,     ^  A-ftea^f  />y€^  )4r  '^L  '^^ 


7^   -^/y A4    ifi^    /5/v*^^^*«^^  ^U<^  f^c<:e^  •3^i^li,a«^ 

An  autograph  copy  of  Mrs.  Fields' s  '"''Flammayitis  Moenia  Mundi  " 
bejore  its  final  revision 

mind  and  spirit  in  which  the  two  friends  shared  for 

many  years.     It  is  no  wonder  that  Mrs.  Fields,  who 

abandoned  the  regular  maintenance  of  her  diary  in  the 

face  of  her  husband's  failing  health,  resumed  it  in  later 

years  only  under  the  special  provocations  of  travel. 

In  its  place  she  took  up  the  practice  of  writing  daily 

missives  —  sometimes  letters,  more  often  the  merest 


288  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

notes  —  to  Miss  Jewett  whenever  they  were  separated. 
These  innumerable  little  messages  of  affection  con- 
tained frequent  references  to  persons  and  passing  events, 
but  rather  as  memoranda  for  talk  when  the  two  friends 
should  meet  than  as  records  at  all  resembling  the  ear- 
lier journals.  Such  local  friends  as  Mrs.  Pratt  and  Mrs. 
Bell,  in  whom  the  spirit  and  wit  of  their  father,  Ru- 
fus  Choate,  shone  on  for  later  generations;  Mrs.  Whit- 
man, mistress  of  the  arts  of  color  and  of  friendship; 
Miss  Guiney,  figuring  always  as  "the  Linnet,"  even  as 
Mrs.  Thaxter  was  "the  Sandpiper";  Dr.  Holmes,  Phil- 
lips Brooks,  "dear  Whitticr"  —  these  and  scores  of 
others,  young  and  old,  known  and  unknown  to  fame, 
people  the  scene  which  the  little  notes  recall.  There 
arc,  besides,  such  visitors  from  abroad  as  Matthew  Ar- 
nold and  his  wife,  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  and  her  daugh- 
ter, M.  and  Mme.  Brunetierc,  and  Mmc.  Blanc  ("Th. 
Bentzon"),  whose  article,  "Condition  de  la  Femme  aux 
Etats-Unis,"  in  the  "Revue  des  Deux  Mondes"  for 
September,  1 894,  could  not  have  been  written  but  for 
the  knowledge  of  Boston  acquired  through  a  long  visit 
to  the  house  in  Charles  Street.  Of  the  salon  of  her 
hostess  she  wrote:  "Je  voudrais  essayer  de  pein- 
dre  celui  qui  se  rapproche  le  plus,  par  beaucoup  de 
cotes,  les  salons  de  France  de  la  meilleure  epoque,  le 
salon  de  Mrs.  J.  T.  Fields."  She  goes  on  to  paint  it, 
and  from  the  picture  at  least  one  fragment  —  apropos 
of  the  portraits  in  the  house  —  should  be  rescued,  if 
only  for  the  piquancy  conferred  by  Mme.  Blanc's  na- 
tive tongue  upon  a  bit  of  anecdote:  "Emerson  realise 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  289 

bien,  en  physique,  I'idee  d'immaterialite  que  je  me  fal- 
sals  de  lui.  Mrs.  Fields  me  conte  une  jolie  anecdote : 
vers  la  fin  de  sa  vie,  il  fut  prit  d'un  singulier  acces  de 
curiosite ;  il  voulut  savoir  une  fois  ce  que  c'etait  le  whis- 
ky et  entra  dans  un  bar  pour  s'en  servir :  —  Vous  vou- 
lez  un  verre  d'eau,  Mr.  Emerson  ?  dit  le  garjon,  sans 
lui  donner  le  temps  d'exprimer  sa  criminelle  envie. 
Et  le  philosophe  but  son  verre  d'eau,  .  .  .  et  il  mourut 
sans  connaitre  le  gout  du  whisky." 

But  if  the  notes  of  Mrs.  Fields  to  Miss  Jewett,  and 
Miss  Jewett's  own  letters  to  her  friend  in  Boston,  do 
not  provide  any  counterpart  to  the  diaries  which  make 
up  the  greater  portion  of  this  book,  there  are,  in  the 
journals  kept  by  Mrs.  Fields  on  special  occasions  of 
travel,  records  of  experiences  shared  by  the  two  friends 
which  should  be  given  here. 

When  they  went  to  Europe  together,  as  early  as  1882, 
the  two  travellers  were  happily  characterized  by  Whit- 
tier  in  a  sonnet,  "Godspeed,"  as 

her  in  whom 
All  graces  and  sweet  charities  unite 
The  old  Greek  beauty  set  in  holier  light ; 
And  her  for  whom  New  England's  byways  bloom, 
Who  walks  among  us  welcome  as  the  Spring, 
Calling  up  blossoms  where  her  light  feet  stray. 

No  effort  or  adventure  seemed  to  daunt  the  compan- 
ions in  their  journeyings.  There  was  an  indomitable 
quality  in  Mrs.  Fields  which  Miss  Jewett  used  to  as- 
cribe to  her  "May  blood,"  with  its  strain  of  aboli- 
tionism, and  it  showed  itself  when  she  accepted  with 


290  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

enthusiasm,  and  successfully  urged  Miss  Jcwett  to  ac- 
cept, an  invitation  to  make  a  two  months'  winter  cruise 
in  West  Indian  waters,  in  company  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Aldrich,  on  the  yacht  Hermione  of  their  friend,  Henry 
L.  Pierce.  The  diary  of  Mrs.  Fields  records  discomforts 
and  pleasures  with  an  equal  hand,  and  gives  lively 
glimpses  of  island  and  ocean  scenes.  At  Santo  Do- 
mingo, for  example,  the  President  of  the  Republic  of 
Haiti  dined  on  the  Hermione  on  St.  Valentine's  Day, 
1896,  and  talked  in  a  manner  to  which  the  impending 
liberation  of  Cuba  from  the  Spanish  yoke  may  now  be 
seen  to  have  added  some  significance. 

Anything  more  interesting  than  his  conversation 
[wrote  Mrs.  Fields]  would  be  impossible  to  find.  He 
ended  just  before  we  left  the  table  by  speaking  of  Cuba. 
He  is  inclined  to  believe  that  the  day  of  Spain  is  over. 
The  people  are  already  conquerors  in  the  interior  and 
are  approaching  Havana.  Spain  will  soon  be  compelled 
to  retire  to  her  coast  defenses  and  she  is  sure  to  be  driven 
thence  in  two  years  or  sooner.  Of  course,  if  the  Cubans 
arc  recognized  by  the  great  powers  they  will  triumph 
all  the  sooner. 

"Do  these  island  republics  take  the  part  of  Cuba?" 
someone  asked. 

"I  will  tell  you  a  little  talc  of  a  camel,"  he  said,  "if 
you  will  allow  me  —  a  camel  greatly  overladen  who 
lamented  his  sad  fate.  *I  am  bent  to  the  earth,'  he 
said;  'everything  is  heaped  upon  me  and  I  feel  as  if  I 
could  never  rise  again  under  such  a  load.*    Upon  his 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  291 

pack  was  seated  a  flea,  who  heard  the  lament  of  the 
camel.  Immediately  the  flea  jumped  to  the  ground. 
*  See  1 '  he  said ; '  now  rise,  I  have  relieved  you  of  my  own 
weight.'  'Thank  you,  Mr.  Elephant,'  said  the  camel, 
as  he  glanced  at  the  flea  hopping  away.  The  recognition 
of  these  islands  would  help  Cuba  about  as  much,"  he 
added  laughingly. 

But  the  President  of  Haiti,  concerning  whom  much 
more  might  be  quoted,  is  less  a  part  of  the  present 
picture  than  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  of  whom  Mrs. 
Fields  wrote,  February  21  :  — 

T.  B.  A.'s  wit  and  pleasant  company  never  fail  — 
he  is  so  natural,  finding  fault  at  times,  without  being  a 
fault-finder,  and  being  crusty  like  another  human  crea- 
ture when  out  of  sorts  —  but  on  the  whole  a  most  re- 
freshing companion,  coming  up  from  below  every  morn- 
ing with  a  shining  countenance,  his  hair  curling  like  a 
boy's,  and  ready  for  a  new  day.  He  said  yesterday  that 
he  should  like  to  live  450  years  —  "shouldn't  you?" 
"No,"  I  said;  "I  am  on  tip-toe  for  the  flight."  "Ah," 
he  said  with  a  visible  shudder,  "we  know  nothing  about 
it  1  Oddly  enough,  I  have  strange  impressions  of  hav- 
ing lived  before  —  once  in  London  especially  —  not  at 
St.  Paul's,  or  Pall  Mall,  or  in  any  of  the  great  places 
where  I  might  have  been  deceived  by  previous  imagina- 
tions, —  not  at  all,  —  but  among  some  old  streets  where 
I  had  never  been  before  and  where  I  had  no  associa- 
tions." He  would  have  gone  on  in  this  vein  and  would 


i9:i  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

have  drawn  me  into  giving  some  reasons  for  my  faith 
which  would  have  been  none  to  him,  but  fortunately 
we  were  interrupted.  He  is  full  of  quips  and  cranks  in 
talk  —  is  a  worshipper  of  the  English  language  and  a 
good  student  of  Murray's  Grammar,  in  which  he  faith- 
fully believes.  His  own  training  in  it  he  values  as  much 
as  anything  which  ever  came  to  him.  He  picks  up  the 
unfortunates,  of  which  I  am  chief,  who  say  "people" 
meaning  "persons,"  who  say  "at  length"  for  "at  last," 
and  who  use  foolish  redundancies,  but  I  cannot  seem  to 
record  his  fun.  He  began  to  joke  Bridget  early  in  the 
voyage  about  the  necessity  of  being  tattooed  when  she 
arrived  at  the  Windward  Islands,  like  the  rest  of  the 
crew  !  Fancying  that  he  saw  a  sort  of  half  idea  that  he 
was  in  earnest,  he  kept  it  up  and  told  her  that  the  butter- 
mark  of  Ponkapog  should  be  the  device !  The  matter 
had  nearly  blown  over  when  yesterday  he  wanted  her 
suddenly  and  called,  "  Bridget,"  at  the  gangway  rather 
sharply.  "Here,  sir,"  said  the  dear  creature  running 
quickly  to  mount  the  stairs.  "The  tattoo-man  is  here," 
said  T.  B.  With  all  seriousness  Bridget  paused  a  mo- 
ment, wavered,  looked  again,  and  then  came  on  laugh- 
ing to  do  what  he  really  wanted.  "That  man  will  be 
the  death  of  me  —  so  he  will,"  said  B.  as  she  went  away 
on  her  errand.  She  is  his  slave;  gets  his  clothes  and 
waits  upon  him  every  moment;  but  his  fun  and  sweet- 
ness with  her  " deseunuie  de  service ^^  and  more,  charges 
it  with  pleasantness. 

T.  B.  A.  is  a  most  careful  reader  and  a  true  reporter 
upon  the  few  good  books  of  which  he  is  cognizant.   He 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  293 

has  read  Froude's  history  twice  through,  and  Queen 
Mary's  reign  three  times.  He  has  read  a  vast  number 
of  novels,  hundreds  and  hundreds,  —  French  and  Eng- 
lish, —  but  his  knowledge  of  French  seems  to  stop  there. 
He  also  once  knew  Spanish,  but  that  seems  to  have 
dropped  —  he  never,  I  think,  could  speak  much  of  any 
language  save  his  own.  Being  a  master  there  is  so  much 
more  than  the  rest  of  us  achieve  that  we  feel  he  has  won 
his  laurels. 

On  a  later  journey,  in  1898,  Mrs.  Fields  and  Miss 
Jewett,  visiting  England  and  France  in  company  with 
Miss  Jewett's  sister  and  nephew,  were  on  more  famil- 
iar and  more  suitable  ground  —  if  indeed  that  word 
can  be  used  even  figuratively  for  the  unstable  deck  of 
a  yacht.  In  London  there  were  many  old  and  new 
friends  to  be  seen.  In  Paris  Mme.  Blanc  opened  for  the 
travellers  the  doors  of  many  a  salon  not  commonly 
accessible  to  visiting  Americans.  But  from  all  the 
abundant  chronicle  of  these  experiences,  it  will  be 
enough  to  make  two  selections.  The  first  describes  a 
visit  to  the  Provencal  poet.  Mistral,  with  his  "Boufflo 
Beel"  dog  and  hat;  the  second,  a  glimpse  of  Henry 
James  at  Rye. 

It  was  in  May  of  1898,  that  Mrs.  Fields  and  Miss 
Jewett,  finding  Paris  cold  and  rainy,  determined  to 
strike  for  sunshine,  and  the  South.  A  little  journey 
into  Provence,  and  a  visit  to  Mistral,  followed  this  de- 
cision. The  following  notes  record  the  visit. 


294  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

A  perfect  time  and  perfect  weather  in  which  to  see  the 
country  of  Provence.  Fields  of  great  white  poppies  and 
other  flowers  planted  for  seed  in  this  district  made  the 
way  beautiful  on  either  hand.  Olive  trees  with  rows  of 
black  cypress  and  old  tiled-roofed  farmhouses,  and  the 
mountains  always  on  the  horizon,  filled  the  landscape. 
The  first  considerable  house  we  reached  was  the  home 
of  the  poet.  A  pretty  garden  which  attracted  our  atten- 
tion with  a  rare  eglantine  called  La  Reine  Joanne,  and 
other  charming  things  hanging  over  the  wall  made  us 
suspicious  of  the  poet's  vicinity.  Turning  the  corner 
of  this  garden  and  driving  up  a  short  road,  we  found 
the  courtyard  and  door  on  the  inner  side  as  it  were. 
We  heard  a  barking  dog.  "Take  care,"  said  the  driver, 
"there  is  a  dangerous  dog  inside."  We  waited  until 
Mistral  himself  came  to  meet  us  from  the  garden;  he 
was  much  amused.  There  was  an  old  dog  tied,  half 
asleep,  on  a  bench  and  a  young  one  by  his  side.  He 
said  laughing,  "These  are  all,  and  they  could  not  be 
less  dangerous.  The  elder"  (he  let  them  loose  while 
he  spoke  and  they  played  about  us),  "the  elder  I  call 
Houfl^e,  from  Boufflo  Beel"  (Mistral  does  not  speak 
any  English,  nor  does  his  wife)  "and  the  reason  is  be- 
cause I  happened  to  be  in  the  neighborhood  of  Paris 
once  just  after  Hurfalo  Bill  had  passed  on  toward  Calais 
with  his  troupe.  I  saw  a  little  dog,  unlike  the  dogs  of 
our  country,  who  seemed  to  be  lost,  but  the  moment  he 
saw  me,  he  thought  I  was  'Boufllo  Beel'  and  adopted 
me  for  his  master.  You  see  I  look  like  him,"  he  said, 
putting  his  wide  felt  hat  a  little  more  on  one  side  !  Yes, 


MISTRAL,  MASTER  OF  -BOUFFLO  REEL' 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  295 

we  did  think  so.  "Well,  the  little  dog  has  been  with  us 
ever  since.  He  possesses  the  most  wonderful  intelli- 
gence and  understands  every  word  we  say.  One  day  I 
said  to  him,  'What  a  pity  such  a  nice  dog  as  you  should 
have  no  children  !'  A  few  days  later  the  servant  said  to 
me,  'Bouffe  has  been  away  nearly  two  days,  but  he 
has  now  come  back  bringing  his  wife.'  'Ahl'  I  said, 
*take  good  care  of  them  both.'  In  due  time  this  other 
little  dog,  his  son,  arrived  in  the  world,'and  shortly  after 
Bouffe  carried  his  wife  away  again,  but  kept  the  little 
dog.  He  is  a  wonderful  fellow,  to  be  sure." 

We  went  into  the  house  and  sat  down  to  talk  awhile 
about  poetry  and  books.  There  was  a  large  book-case 
full  of  French  and  Provencal  literature  here,  but  it  was 
rather  the  parlor  and  everyday  sitting-room  than  his 
work-room.  Unhappily,  they  have  no  children.  Evi- 
dently they  are  exceedingly  happy  together  and  natur- 
ally do  not  miss  what  they  have  never  had.  She  opened 
the  drawing-room  for  us,  which  is  the  room  of  state.  It 
is  full  of  interesting  things  connected  with  Provence 
and  their  own  life,  but  perfectly  simple,  in  accord  with 
the  country-like  fashion  of  their  existence.  There  is 
a  noble  b^s-relief  of  the  head  of  Mistral,  the  drum  or 
"tambour"  of  the  Felibre,  or  for  the  Farandole,  and, 
without  overloading,  plenty  of  good  things  —  photo- 
graphs, one  or  two  pictures,  not  many,  for  the  house  is 
not  that  of  a  rich  man,  plaster  casts,  and  one  or  two 
busts,  —  perhaps  the  presents  of  artists,  —  illustrations 
of  "Mireio,"  and  things  associated  with  their  individual 
lives  or  the  life  of  Provence.    Presently  Mistral  gave  me 


296  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

his  arm  and  we  went  across  the  hall.  Standing  in  the 
place  of  honor  opposite  the  front  door  and  in  the  large 
corner  made  by  the  staircase,  is  a  fine  copy  of  the  bust  of 
Lamartine,  crowned  with  an  olive  wreath.  We  paused 
a  moment  here  while  Mistral  spoke  of  Lamartine,  and 
always  with  the  sincere  reverence  which  he  has  ex- 
pressed in  the  poem  entitled  " Elcgie  sur  la  mort  de 
Lamartine^  .  .  . 

The  dining-room  was  still  more  Provencal,  if  possible, 
than  the  rooms  we  had  visited.  The  walls  were  white, 
which,  with  the  closed  green  blinds,  must  give  a  pleas- 
ant light  when  the  days  are  hot,  yet  bright  even  on  grey 
days.  Specimens  of  the  pottery  of  the  country  hang 
around,  decorated  with  soft  colors.  The  old  carved 
bread-mixing-and-holding  affair,  which  belonged  in 
every  well-to-do  house  of  the  old  time,  was  there,  and 
one  or  two  other  old  pieces  of  furniture,  while  the  chairs, 
sofa,  and  table  were  of  quaint  shape,  painted  green  with 
some  decorations. 

The  details  are  all  petty  enough,  but  they  proved  how 
sincerely  Mistral  and  his  wife  love  their  country  and 
their  surroundings  and  endeavor  to  ennoble  them  and 
make  the  most  of  them.  .After  sitting  at  table  and  en- 
joying their  hospitality,  we  went  out  again  into  the  gar- 
den where  Madame  Mistral  gathered  "Nerto"  (myrtle) 
for  us,  beside  roses  and  other  more  beautiful  but  more 
formidable  things.  "Nerto  "is  the  titleof  one  of  his  last 
books  (I  hear)  and  the  wife  doubtless  believed  that  we 
should  cherish  a  branch  of  her  myrtle  especially  in  mem- 
ory of  the  visit.    She  was  quite  right,  but  these  things 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  297 

which  are  "to  last"  —  how  frail  they  are;  the  things 
that  remain  are  those  which  are  written  on  the  heart. 

We  cannot  forget  these  two  picturesque  beings  stand- 
ing in  their  garden,  filling  our  hands  with  flowers  and 
bidding  us  farewell.  As  we  drove  away  into  the  sunny 
plain  once  more,  we  found  it  speaking  to  us  with  a 
voice  of  human  kindness  echoing  from  that  poetic  and 
friendly  home.  In  a  more  personal  vein,  the  address  to 
Lamartine  by  Mistral  expresses  better  his  mood  of  the 
afternoon  when  we  stood  together  looking  at  the  bust 
and  recalling  each  our  personal  remembrance  of  the 


An  excursion  from  London,  on  September  I2,  de- 
voted to  a  day  with  Henry  James,  gave  Mrs.  Fields  a 
memorable  glimpse  of  the  son  of  an  old  friend,  and  an 
honest  pleasure  in  learning  at  first  hand  of  his  apprecia- 
tion of  Miss  Jewett's  writings. 

Monday  J  September  13,  1898.  —  We  left  London 
about  II  o'clock  for  Rye,  to  pass  the  day  with  Mr. 
Henry  James.  He  was  waiting  for  us  at  the  station 
with  a  carriage,  and  in  five  minutes  we  found  ourselves 
at  the  top  of  a  silent  little  winding  street,  at  a  green 
door  with  a  brass  knocker,  wearing  the  air  of  impene- 
trable respectability  which  is  so  well  known  in  England. 
Another  instant  and  an  old  servant,  Smith  (who  with 
his  wife  has  been  in  Mr.  James's  service  for  20 
years),  opened  the  door  and  helped  us  from  the  car- 
riage.   It  was  a  prettv  interior  —  large  enough  for  ele- 


298  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

gance,  and  simple  enough  to  suit  the  severe  taste  of  a 
scholar  and  private  gentleman. 

Mr.  James  was  intent  on  the  largest  hospitality. 
We  were  asked  upstairs  over  a  staircase  with  a  pretty 
balustrade  and  plain  green  drugget  on  the  steps ;  every- 
thing was  of  the  severest  plainness,  but  in  the  best 
taste,  "not  at  all  austere,"  as  he  himself  wrote  us. 

We  soon  went  down  again  after  leaving  our  hats,  to 
find  a  young  gentleman,  Mr.  McAlpine,  who  is  Mr. 
James's  secretary,  with  him,  awaiting  us.  This  young 
man  is  just  the  person  to  help  Mr.  James.  He  has  a 
bump  of  reverence  and  appreciates  his  position  and 
opportunity.  We  sat  in  the  parlor  opening  on  a  pretty 
garden  for  some  time,  until  Mr.  James  said  he  could 
not  conceive  why  luncheon  was  not  ready  and  he  must 
go  and  inquire,  which  he  ilid  in  a  very  responsible  man- 
ner, and  soon  after  Smith  appeared  to  announce  the 
feast.  Again  a  pretty  room  and  table.  We  enjoyed  our 
talk  together  sincerely  at  lunchecMi  and  afterward 
strolled  into  the  garden.  The  dominating  note  was 
dear  Mr.  James's  pleasure  in  having  a  home  of  his  own 
to  which  he  might  ask  us.  From  the  garden,  of  course, 
we  could  see  the  pretty  old  house  still  more  satisfac- 
torily. An  old  brick  wall  concealed  by  vines  and 
laurels  surrounds  the  whole  irregular  domain ;  a  door 
from  the  garden  leads  into  a  paved  courtyard  which 
seemed  to  give  Mr.  James  peculiar  satisfaction;  re- 
turning to  the  garden,  and  on  the  other  side,  at  an  angle 
with  the  house,  is  a  building  which  he  laughingly  called 
the  temple  of  the  Muse.    This  is  his  own  place  par  excel- 


Lamb  House. 
Rye. 

Sussex. 


^<; 


^^^t^    ^>...^^  ..^i:.^-^^  i^  >^    '^^^"^'^M. 


Reduced  jacsimtle  oj  postscript  of  a  letter  from  Henry  James, 

expressing  the  intention,  which  he  could  not  fulfill,  to  provide 

an  Introduction  to  the  ''''Letters  of  Sarah  Orne  Jewett" 


joo  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

lence.  A  good  writing-table  and  one  for  his  secretary,  a 
typewriter,  books,  and  a  sketch  by  Du  Maurier,  with 
a  few  other  pictures  (rather  mementoes  than  works  of 
art),  excellent  windows  with  clear  light,  such  is  the 
temple  !  Evidently  an  admirable  spot  for  his  work. 

After  we  returned  to  the  oarlor  Mr.  James  took  oc- 
casion to  tell  Sarah  how  deeolv  and  sincerely  he  appre- 
ciated her  work;  how  he  re-reads  it  with  increasing  ad- 
miration. "It  is  foolish  to  ask,  I  know,"  he  said,  "but 
were  you  in  just  such  a  place  as  vou  describe  in  the 
'Pointed  Firs'?"  "No,"  she  said,  "not  precisely;  the 
book  was  chiefly  written  before  I  visited  the  locality 
itself."  "And  such  an  island?"  he  continued.  "Not 
exactly,"  she  said  again.  "Ah!  I  thought  so,"  he  said 
musingly;  and  the  language —  "It  is  so  absolutely  true 
—  not  a  word  overdone  —  such  elegance  and  exactness." 
"And  Mrs.  Dennet  —  how  admirable  she  is,"  he  said 
again,  not  waiting  for  a  reply.  I  need  not  say  they 
were  very  much  at  home  together  after  this. 

Meanwhile  the  carriage  came  again  to  the  door,  for 
he  had  made  a  plan  to  take  us  on  a  drive  to  Winchel- 
sea,  a  second  of  the  Cinq  Portes,  Rye  itself  also  being 
one.  The  sea  has  retreated  from  both  these  places, 
leaving  about  two  miles  of  the  Romney  Marsh  between 
them  and  the  shore.  Nothing  could  be  more  like  some- 
thing bom  of  the  imagination  than  the  old  city  of  VVin- 
chelsea.  .  .  .  Just  outside  the  old  gate  looking  towards 
Rye  and  the  sea  from  a  lonely  height  is  the  cottage 
where  Ellen  Terry  has  found  a  summer  resting-place 
and  retirement.  It  is  a  true  home  for  an  artist  —  nothing 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  301 

could  be  lovelier.  Unhappily  she  was  not  there,  but  we 
were  happy  to  see  the  place  which  she  described  to  us 
with  so  great  satisfaction. 

From  Winchelsea  Mr.  James  drove  us  to  the  station, 
where  we  took  the  train  for  Hastings.  He  had  brought 
his  small  dog,  an  aged  black  and  tan  terrier,  with  him 
for  a  holiday.  He  put  on  the  muzzle,  which  all  dogs 
just  now  must  wear,  and  took  it  off  a  great  many  times 
until,  having  left  it  once  when  he  went  to  buy  the  tick- 
ets and  recovered  it,  he  again  lost  it  and  it  could  not  be 
found ;  so  as  soon  as  he  reached  Hastings,  he  took  a  car- 
riage again  to  drive  us  along  the  esplanade,  but  the  first 
thing  was  to  buy  a  new  muzzle.  This  esplanade  is  three 
miles  long,  but  we  began  to  feel  hke  tea,  so  having 
looked  upon  the  sea  sufficiently  from  this  decidedly  un- 
romantic  point  of  view,  we  went  into  a  small  shop  and 
enjoyed  more  talk  under  new  conditions.  "How  many 
cakes  have  you  eaten?"  "Ten,"  gravely  replied  Mr. 
James  —  at  which  we  all  laughed.  "Oh,  I  know,"  said 
the  girl  with  a  wise  look  at  the  desk.  "How  do  you  sup- 
pose they  know.^"  said  Mi.  James  musingly  as  he 
turned  away.  "They  always  do!"  And  so  on  again 
presently  to  the  train  at  Hastings,  where  Mr.  McAl- 
pine  appeared  at  the  right  instant.  Mr.  James's  train 
for  Rye  left  a  few  moments  before  ours  for  London.  He 
took  a  most  friendly  farewell  and  having  left  us  to  Mr. 
McA.  ran  for  his  own  carriage.  In  another  five  minutes 
we  too  were  away,  bearing  our  delightful  memories  of 
this  meeting. 


302  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

Not  because  they  record  momentous  events  and  en- 
counters, but  merely  as  little  pictures  of  the  life  which 
Mrs.  Fields  and  Miss  Jewett  led  together,  these  passages 
are  brought  to  light.  They  are  the  last  to  be  presented 
here.  For  more  than  another  decade  beyond  the  summer 
of  1898,  Miss  Jewett,  sorely  invalided  through  the  final 
years  as  the  result  of  a  carriage  accident,  remained  the 
central  personal  fact  in  Mrs.  Fields's  interest  and  affec- 
tions. Soon  after  her  death,  in  June,  1909,  Mrs.  Fields 
wrote  about  her  to  a  common  friend:  "Of  my  dear 
Sarah — I  believe  one  of  her  noblest  qualities  was  her 
great  generosity.  Others  could  only  guess  at  this,  but 
I  was  allowed  to  know  it.  Not  that  she  made  gifts,  but 
a  wide  sympathy  was  hers  for  every  disappointed  or 
incompetent  fellow  creature.  It  was  a  most  distinguish- 
ing characteristic!    Governor  Andrew  spoke  of  Judge 

B once  as  *A  friend  to  every  man  who  did  not 

need  a  friend' !  Sarah's  quick  sympathy  knew  a  friend 
was  in  need  before  she  knew  it  herself;  she  was  the 
spirit  of  beneficence,  and  her  quick  delicate  wit  was 
such  a  joy  in  daily  companionship!" 

Of  this  daily  companionship  an  anonymous  contrib- 
utor to  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  for  August,  1909,  had 
been  a  fortunate  witness.  I  need  not  ask  his  permission 
to  repeat  a  portion  of  what  he  then  wrote :  — 

"There  is  but  one  familiar  portrait  of  Miss  Jewett. 
It  has  been  so  often  reprinted  that  many  who  have  seen 
it,  even  without  seeing  her,  must  think  of  her  as  im- 
mune from  change,  blessed  with  perpetual  youth,  with 
a    gracious,   sympathetic    femininity,    with   an    air  of 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  303 

breeding  and  distinction  quite  independent  of  shifting 
fashions. 

"This  portrait  is  intimately  symbolic  of  her  work.  It 
typifies  with  a  rare  faithfulness  the  quality  of  all  the 
products  of  her  pen.  In  them  one  found,  and  finds,  the 
same  abiding  elements  of  beauty,  sympathy,  and  dis- 
tinction. The  element  of  sympathy  —  perhaps  the 
greatest  of  these  —  found  its  expression  in  a  humor  that 
provoked  less  of  outward  laughter  than  of  smiles  within, 
and  in  a  pathos  the  very  counterpart  of  this  delicate 
quality.  The  beauty  and  the  distinction  may  be  less 
capable  of  brief  characterization,  but  they  pervaded  her 
art.  .  .  . 

"This  work  of  hers,  in  dealing  with  the  New  England 
life  she  knew  and  loved,  was  essentially  American,  as 
purely  indigenous  as  the  pointed  firs  of  her  own  coun- 
tryside. The  art  with  which  she  wrought  her  native 
themes  was  limited,  on  the  contrary,  by  no  local  bound- 
aries. At  its  best  it  had  the  absolute  quality  of  the 
highest  art  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  And  the  spirit 
in  which  she  approached  her  task  was  as  broad  in  its 
scope  and  sympathy  as  her  art  in  its  form.  It  was  pre- 
cisely this  union  of  what  was  at  once  so  clearly  Ameri- 
can and  so  clearly  universal  that  distinguished  her 
stories,  in  the  eyes  of  both  editor  and  reader,  as  the 
best  —  so  often  —  in  any  magazine  that  contained  them, 

"Her  constant  demand  upon  herself  was  for  the  best. 
There  were  no  compromises  with  mediocrity,  either  in 
her  tastes  or  in  her  achievement  s.  It  was  the  best  as- 
pect of  New  England  character  and  tradition  on  which 


304  MEMORIES  OF  A  HOSTESS 

her  vision  steadily  dwelt.  She  was  satisfied  with  noth- 
ing short  of  the  best  in  her  interpretation  of  New  Eng- 
land life.  The  form  of  creative  writing  in  which  she 
won  her  highest  successes  —  the  short  story  —  is  the 
form  in  which  Americans  have  made  their  most  dis- 
tinctive contributions  to  English  literature;  and  her 
place  with  the  few  best  of  these  writers  appears  to  be 
secure. 

"If  the  familiar  portrait  typifies  her  work,  it  is  equally 
true  to  the  person  herself.  The  quick,  responsive  spirit 
of  youth,  with  all  its  sincerity,  all  its  enjoyment  in 
friendship  or  whatever  else  the  day  might  hold,  was  an 
immutable  possession.  So  were  all  the  other  qualities 
for  which  the  features  spoke.  Through  the  recent  years 
of  physical  disability,  due  in  the  first  instance  to  an  acci- 
dent so  gratuitous  that  it  seemed  to  her  friends  unendur- 
able, there  was  a  noble  patience,  a  sweet  endurance, 
that  could  have  sprung  only  from  an  heroic  strain  of 
character." 

For  nearly  six  years  Mrs.  Fields  survived  Miss  Jew- 
ett,  bereaved  as  by  the  loss  of  half  her  personal  world, 
yet  indomitable  of  spirit  and  energy,  so  long  as  her  phys- 
ical forces  would  permit  any  of  the  old  accustomed  exer- 
cises of  hospitality  and  friendship.  The  selection  and 
publication  of  Miss  Jewett's  letters  was  a  labor  of  love 
which  continued  the  sense  of  companionship  for  the 
first  two  of  the  remaining  years.  Through  the  four 
others  there  was  a  failing  of  bodily  strength,  though  not 
at  all  of  mental  and  spiritual  eagerness;  and  in  her  out- 
ward mien  through  all  the  later  years,  there  was  that 


SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  305 

which  must  have  recalled  to  many  the  ancient  couplet : — 

No  Spring,  nor  summer's  beauty  hath  such  grace 
As  I  have  seen  in  one  autumnal  face. 

Towards  the  end  there  was  a  brief  return  to  the  keep- 
ing of  a  sporadic  diary.  Its  final  words,  written  Janu- 
ary 25,  1913,  were  these:  "The  days  go  on  cheerfully. 
I  have  just  read  Mark  Twain's  Hfe,  the  life  of  a  man 
who  had  greatness  in  him.  I  am  now  reading  his 
'Joan  of  Arc'  I  hope  to  wait  as  cheerfully  as  he  did 
for  the  trumpet  call  and  as  usefully,  but  I  am  ready." 

When  Mrs.  Fields  died  and  the  Charles  Street  door 
was  finally  closed,  at  the  beginning  of  191 5,  the  world 
had  entered  upon  its  first  entire  year  of  a  new  era.  It  is 
an  era  as  sharply  separated  from  that  of  her  intimate 
contemporaries,  the  American  Victorians,  as  any  new 
from  any  old  order.  The  figures  of  every  old  order  take 
their  places  by  degrees  as  "museum  pieces,"  objects  of 
curious  and  sometimes  condescending  study.  But  let  us 
not  be  too  sure  that  in  parting  with  the  past  we  have  let 
it  keep  only  that  which  can  best  be  spared.  We  would 
not  wish  them  back,  those  Victorians  of  ours.  They 
were  the  product  of  their  own  day,  and  would  be  hardly 
at  ease  —  poor  things  —  in  our  twentieth-century  Zion. 
Even  some  of  us  who  inhabit  it  gain  a  sense  of  rest  in 
reentering  their  quiet,  decorous  dwelling-places.  As  we 
emerge  again  from  one  of  them,  may  it  be  with  a  re- 
newed allegiance  to  those  lasting  "  things  that  are  more 
excellent,"  which  belong  to  every  generation  of  civilized 
men  and  women. 


INDEX 


Page  numbers  set  in  bold-faced  type  indicate,  generally  speaking, 
the  more  important  references  to  the  persons  concerned.  As  a  com- 
plete list  of  the  pages  on  which  Mr.  or  Mrs.  Fields,  or  both,  are 
mentioned  would  include  substantially  the  whole  book,  only  a  few 
of  the  more  significant  references  to  them  have  been  selected  for 
inclusion  under  their  names. 


Adams,  Annie,  marries  J.T.  F.,  ii. 

And  see  Fields,  Annie. 
Adams,  Charles  F.,  Jr.,  278. 
Adams,  Lizzie,  20. 
Adams,  Zabdiel  B.,  11. 
Agassiz,  Alexander,  256,  257,  258. 
Agassiz,  Elizabeth  C,  159. 
Agassiz,  Louis,  48,  93,  105,  141. 
Alcott,  A.  Branson,  63, 72-77,  81,  82, 

95. 
Alcott,  Mrs.  A.  Branson,  63. 
Alcott,  Louisa  M.,  73. 
Alden,  Henry  M.,  57,  89. 
Aldrich,  Lilian  (Woodman),  126,  203, 

229,  290. 
Aldrich,  Thomas  B.,  11,  116,  126  and 

n.,  127, 197/.,  226-229,  290,  291- 

293. 
Andrew,  John  A.,  11,  36«.,  302. 
Andrew,  Mrs.  John  A.,  28,  213,  214. 
Appleton,  Thomas  Gold,  115,  116, 

126,  152,  154,  209,  211,  212,  213, 

216,  246,  253. 
Aristotle,  133. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  288. 
Astor,  John  Jacob,  76,  77. 
Atlantic  Monthly,  6,  13,  14,  107,  in, 

191  «.,  209,  233,  252,  281,  282,  302. 

Bacon,  Francis,  Lord,  1 1 2. 
Baker,  Sir  Samuel,  149. 
Barbauld,  Anna  L.  A.,  loi. 
Barker,  Fordyce,  151,  185. 
Barlow,  Francis  C,  61. 
Barrett,  Lawrence,  240. 
Bartol,  Cyrus  A.,  114,  215,  239. 
Beal,  James  H.,  143. 


Beal,  Louisa  (Adams),  42,  143. 

Beal,  Thomas,  199. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  89,  224,  263, 

267-269,  270. 
Bell,  Helen  (Choate),  98,  143,  288. 
Bellows,  Henry  W.,  199. 
Bentzon,  Th.     See  Blanc,  Marie  T. 
Bigelow,  George  T.,  36. 
Bigelow,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  I43,  144, 
Blagden,  Isa,  260. 
Blake,  Harrison  G.  O.,  89,  90. 
Blanc,  Marie  Therese,  288,  289,  293. 
Blessington,  Countess  of,  274. 
Blumenbach,  Johann  F.,  128,  129. 
Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  58. 
Booth,    Edwin,    28,    198-203,    210, 

240-241. 
Booth,  J.  Wilkes,  28,  198,  199. 
Booth,  Junius  Brutus,  196. 
Booth,  Mary  (Mrs.  Edwin),  241. 
Booth,  Mary  A.  (Mrs.  J.  B.),  198. 
Boswell,  James,  60. 
Boutwell,  George  S.,  89. 
Bradford,  George,  81,  82,  90, 
Bright,  John,  177. 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  131,  266. 
Brooks,  Phillips,  36  «.,  94,  288. 
Brown,  John,  Pet  Marjorie,  59. 
Browne,  Charles  F.,  21. 
Brownell,  Henry  Howard,  29. 
Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett,  270. 
Browning,  Robert,  43,  142,  260,  269. 
Bruneticre,  Ferdinand,  288. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  239,  257. 
"Buffalo  Bill."     See  Cody,  W.  F. 
Bugbee,  James  M.,  126. 
Bull,  Ole,  225, 


3o8 


INDEX 


Burr,  Aaron,  270,  271. 
Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  95. 

Cabot,  Mrs.,  216. 

Caldcron  dc  la  Barca,  Pedro,  no. 

Carleton,  G.  \V.,  233. 

Carl>  le,  Jane  Welsh,  75,  I42,  220. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  73,  75,  79,  89,  14I, 

I42,  165,  167,  190,  191,  220. 
Channing,  W.  Kllcry,  81,  98,  114. 
Cheney,  Arthur,  216. 
Chenev,  F.iinah  D.,  114. 
Chiid.Lydia  M.,  265,  266. 
Childs,  George  W.,  64. 
Choate,  Rufus,  288. 
Cicero,  45. 
Clapp,  Henry,  185. 
Clarke,  James  Freeman,  72,  114. 
Clarke,  Sara,  205. 
Clemens,  Samuel  L.,  232,  2^^,  244- 

257, 305. 
Clemens,  Mrs.  S.  L.,  245  j^. 
Cobden,  Richard,  177. 
Cody,  William  F.,  294. 
Colchester  (medium),  168,  169,  170. 
Collins,  Charles,  i6«, 
Collins,  Mrs.  Charles  (daughter  of 

Dickens),  190. 
Collins,W.Wilkic,  145,189. 
Collyer,  Robert,  215. 
Conway,  Juilge,  219. 
Cooke,  George  W.,  laa, 
Crabl>c,  (Jcorge,  186. 
Crawford,  Thomas,  264. 
Crawford,  Mrs.  Thomas,  264,  265. 
Cubas,  Isal)clla,  22,  23. 
Curtis,  George  Wiljiani,  14,  23>  IM, 

1 88 
Curtis,  Mrs.  G.  W.,  14. 
Cushing,  Caleb,  266,  267. 
Cushman,  Charlotte,  123,219-222. 

Dana,  Charlotte,  i6i. 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  Jr.,  93,  95,  116, 

144,   2<0,   27«. 
Dana,  Mrs.  R.  H.,  Jr.,  92,  93. 
Dana,  Sallic,  161. 
Daniel,  (Jeorge,  95. 
Dante,  .Alighieri,  258. 
Davidson,  Fxlith,  99. 
Davis,  George  T.,  19,  20. 
Dennet,  of  mc  Nation,  1 27. 


Dc  Normandie,  James,  81. 

Dewey,  Dr.,  219. 

Dickens,  Bessy,  194. 

Dickens,  Catherine  (Hogarth),  160. 

Dickens,  Charles,  in  America,    138- 

188;  his  readings,  I40,  I44,  145, 

152,     157,     17',     >72.     181,     182; 

letters  of,  to  J.  T.  F.,   150,   n^i; 

'  -.  32,  33,  n  8,  1 19,  I  20,  r35-195, 

209,  210,  211,  212,  223,240. 
Dickens,  Charles,  Jr.,  194. 
Dickens,  John,  175. 
Dickens,  Mary:   quoted,    193;    I40, 

164.  169,  194. 
Dickinson,  Lowes,  2^2. 
Dodge,  Mary  Abigail,  I44,  220,  221. 
Dolby,  George,    136,   138,  139,   I40, 

143,  144,  149,  150,  161,  \hi,  165, 

1^)6,  171,  173,  178,  180,  185,  189, 

190. 
Donne,  Father,  102. 
Donne,  lohn,  95. 
Dorr,  Charles,  I49,  209. 
Dorr,   Mrs.  Charles,  35,   I49,   150, 

209,  215. 
Drydcn,  John,  109. 
Duffcrin,  Karl  of,  163. 
Dumas,  .Alex.,  21 1. 
Dumas,  A]cx. ,fi/s.,  211. 
Du  Mauricr,  George,  300. 
Dunn,  Rev.  Mr.,  122, 

P'.ccE  Homo,  167. 

Kliot,  Charles  W.,  41. 

Kliotson,  Dr.,  182,  183. 

Kllsler,  Fanny,  24. 

Kmerson,   Kdith,   89,  91.     And  see 

Forbes,  Edith  (Emerson). 
P'merson,  Edward  W.,  94,  103,  104. 
Emerson,  Ellen,  88,  94,  96,  97,  99, 

ICO,  103,  104. 
Emerson,  Lilian  (Jackson),  letter  of, 

to  Mrs.  F.,  88;  61,  62,  89,  94,^)5, 

99,  101,  203. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  letter  of,  to 

J.T.  F.,  87;    14,  15/;.,  24,  61,  62, 

67,  73.  74,  79,  83   84,  8fr-105,  130, 

131,  141,  158,  161,  165,  203,  206, 

238,  239,  289. 
Emerson,  W.  R.,  219. 
England,  Hawthorne  on,  Kg,  60. 
Everett,  Edward,  116,  270,  271. 


INDEX 


309 


Everett,  William,  270. 
Every  Saturday,  1 97. 

Falstaff,  Sir  John,  i  10. 

Fechter,  Charles,  139,  146,  148,  149, 

159)  i79>  i90>  '9')  209 _^. 
Fiefd,  John  W.,  124. 
Field,  Kate,  152,  259,  260,  261. 
Fielding,   Henry,    Tom  Jones,    no, 

Fields,  Annie,  disposition  of  her 
papers,  3;  her  journals,  4,  12; 
H.  James  quoted  on,  5  ;  marriage, 
1 1  ;  her  neighbors,  1 1  ;  and  Leigh 
Hunt,  15,  16;  letter  of  Holmes  to, 
on  her  memorial  volume,  50,  51  ; 
her  books,  53 ;  H.  James,  Sr., 
quoted  on,  85;  "Thunderbolt 
Hill,"  loi  ;  her  character  as  re- 
vealed in  her  diary,  132-134;  her 
championship  of  Dickens,  156, 
157;  the  variety  of  her  friend- 
ships, JgSJf.;  her  ode  for  the  in- 
stallation of  the  Music  Hall  organ, 
219,  220,  221  ;  with  J.  T.  F., 
visits  Mark  Twain  at  Hartford, 
ijfSff.;  and  the  cause  of  equal 
rights  for  women,  275,  278 ;  her 
skill  in  digesting  reports  of  conver- 
sations, 279,  280;  her  intimate 
friendship  with  Miss  Jewett,  281 
ff.;  her  poetry,  285,  286;  list  of 
her  published  prose  works,  286 
friends  of  her  later  years,  288 
travelling  with  Miss  Jewett,289^. 
and  the  President  of  Haiti,  290, 
291;  visits  Mistral,  293-297: 
visits  H.  James,  Jr.,  at  Rye,  297 
301 ;  quoted,  on  Miss  Jewett,  302  , 
her  last  years,  304,  365 ;  the^last 
words  in  her  diary,  305;  her 
death,  305.  James  T.  Fields: 
Biographical  Notes,  4,  13,  16,  50; 
Authors  and  Friends,  4,  31,  86,  87, 
105,  129,  134,  279;  A  Shelf  of  Old 
Books,  I  2  k.;  Hawthorne,  '^4. 
Fields,  Eliza  J.  (Willard),  ik 
Fields,  James  T.,  early  days  in 
Boston,  10,  II,  196 ;  marries  Annie 
Adams,  1 1 ;  their  home  on  Charles 
St.,  II,  12,  137,  138,  218,  219; 
editor  of  the  Atlantic,  14,  58,  67, 


87,  107,  111,119,  191  «.,  233,  282; 
as  raconteur,  21  ;  Holmes  quoted 
on  his  position  in  the  literary 
world,  34;  retires  from  business, 
40;  H.  James,  Sr.,  quoted  on,  85  ; 
his  love  of  the  theatre  and  stage 
folk,  196,  197;  his  death,  280; 
fosters  Mrs.  F.'s  friendship  with 
Miss  Jewett,  283. 

Yesterdays  with  Authors,  4,  54, 
55,  62,  137,  176  w.,  190. 

Fields,  Osgood  &  Co.,  10. 

Fiske,  John,  48. 

Forbes,  Edith  (Emerson),  91. 

Forbes,  William  H.,  91. 

Forrest,  Edwin,  207,  218. 

Forrest,  Mrs.  Edwin,  218. 

Forster,  John,    154,    160,    163.   171, 
213. 

Foster,  Charlotte,  259. 

Frothingham,  Octavius  B.,  274. 

Froude,  James  A.,  68,  293. 

Fuller,  Margaret,  24,  239. 

Fulton,  J.  D.,  122. 

Furness,  William  H.,  loi  w.,102  ,  103. 

Garrett  (impressario),  214. 
Gaskell,  Elizabeth  C.  S.,  131. 
Godwin,  Mrs.  William,  16. 
Goethe,   Johann    W.    von,   WHhelm 

Meister,  132,  133. 
Gorges,  Sir  F.,  74. 
Gounod,  Charles,  44. 
Grant,  Julia  Dent,  159. 
Grant,  Ulysses  S.,    59,  262. 
Grau,  Maurice,  222. 
Greene,  George  W.,  19,  20,  44,  45, 

47,  126,  141,  256,  258,  260. 
Gregory,  Lady,  218. 
Guiney,  Louise  Imogen,  288. 

Haiti,  President  of,  290,  291. 

Hale,  Edward  E.,  93. 

Hale,  John  P.,  261. 

Hallam,  Henry,  89. 

Hamilton,  Gail.     See  Dodge,  Mary 

Abigail. 
Hammersley,  Mr.,  247. 
Harper's  Weekly,  14. 
Harris,  William  T.,  81. 
Harte,  F.  Bret,  117,  233-243. 
Harte,  Mrs.  F.  B.,  239,  240. 


3IO 


INDEX 


Harvard  College,  Commemoration 
I3ay  at,  36  n. 

Hawthorne,  Julian,  15,  144. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  death  of, 
27,  28,67;  letters  at,  to  J.  T.  F., 
';4,  I?.  5^;  his  last  letter,  65-^)7; 
i3,  U,  15  and  n.,  18,  ly.  p,  32, 
3.1,  54-72,  97,  105,  I  27,  236.' 

Hawthorne,  S<jphia  (Pealxidy),  let- 
ter tr)  Mrs.  F.  on  Hawthorne,  70- 
72;  61,65,66,67,68,91,144,246. 

Hawthorne,  Una,  15,  97,  221. 

Hawthorne,  E.  M.,  sister  of  Nathan- 
iel, 69, 

Hayes,  Isaac  I.,  33,  34. 

Hcrl>crt,  George,  95. 

Hcrrick,  Robert,  95. 

Higginson,  Thomas  W.,  114. 

Hill,  Thomas,  92. 

Hillard,  George  S.,  17,  18,  19,  I43. 

Hoar,  Kbcnezcr  R.,  37, 90,  91,  I4I. 

Hogarth,  Gcorgina,  quoted,  193, 
194;    140,  155,  165,  195. 

Holmes,  .Amelia  (Jackson),  30,  34, 
39,  40,  4".  S'.  'SJ,  203,  213,  214, 
221. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wcmlell,  his  rela- 
tions with  the  Kieldscs,  generally, 
17-52;  letters  of.  to  J.  T.  F.,  17. 
49,  and  to  Mrs.  F.,  50:  11,  13,54, 
90,  94,  96,  no,  1 1 1  n.,  115,  116, 
117,  118,  i3<,  141,  142,  203,  205, 

20^>,   207,   208,   221,  256,   257,   273, 
288. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  Jr.,  21,31. 
Home  (medium),  163,  168. 
Horace,  238. 
H<iwe,  jufia  Waril,  9, 10,  61,  90,  1 14 

and  n.,  221. 
Howe,  Laura  (Mrs.  Richards),  150. 
Howe,  Samuel  G.,  219,  273. 
Howells,  William  D.,  38,  116,  166. 
Howes,  Miss,  236. 
Howisfin,  George  H.,  81. 
Hunt,  Henry,  48. 
Hunt,  Ixrigh,  15,  16,  58,  122. 
Hunt,  T.  Sterrv,  199. 
Hunt.  William'  M.,  9^^,  97-99,  230, 

232. 
Hunt.  Mrs.  W.  M..  9^,  98,  222,  23a 
Hyacinthc,  Pcre,  44. 


Incelow,  Jean,  142, 

Jackson,  Charles  T.,  94  and  n. 

James,  Alice,  77,  81,  83. 

James,  George  Ablwt,  42. 

James,  Henrv,  Sr.,  letter  of,  to 
J.  T.  F.,  81,  and  to  Mrs.  F.,  83, 
K5;  72-85. 

James,  Mrs.  Henry,  75,  j-;,  81. 

James,  Henry.  Jr..  ijuoted,  6,  7,  137, 
281;  letter  of.  to  author,  8,  9; 
119,  120,297  301. 

Jan  (li<K)th's  servant),  200,  202. 

Jefferson,  Joseph.  203-208,  247. 

Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  her  intimate 
relations  with  Mrs.  F.,  28IJf.,302- 
304;  her  early  days,  281,  282; 
ncr  literary  work,  28:-284;  cor- 
resix)ndencc  with  Mrs.  F.,  288, 
289;  H.  James  on  her  work,  30x3; 
her  death,  302;  12,  50. 

Johns(jn,  Andrew,  impeachment  of, 
1 5'>;    :6i,  26:,  263. 

Johnson.  Samuel,  60. 

Jonvjn,  Ben.  96. 

Julius  Ca-sar,  45. 

Keats,  John,  43,  68,  206,  207. 
Kellogg,  Klijah,  271,  272. 
KemMe,  Charles,  Hy6. 
Kcmble,    Frances   Anne,    J  96,   222, 

223.  224. 
Kcnnard,  Mr.,  267,  268. 
King,  Preston,  262,  263. 
Kirkup.  Seymour  S.,  258. 
Knowlton,  Helen  M.,  232. 

I^MARTINE,  AlPHONSE  DE,  296,  297. 

Lamb,  Charles,  270. 

I^ndor,    Walter    Savage,    259-261. 

L.ingdon,Mr.,  Mark  Twain's  father- 
in-law,  245. 

Langdon,  Mrs.,  246. 

Larcom,  Lucy,  70. 

I^throp,  George  P.,  97. 

Lafhrop,  Rose  (Hawthorne), quoted, 
^7".;   97,  '44- 

I^ar,  Exlward,  280. 

I^clercq,  Carlotta,  2l6. 

I^maTtrc,  Frederick,  178,  179,  180, 
211. 


INDEX 


3" 


Lincoln,  Abraham,  assassination  of, 
28,  198;   55,  56,77,262,263. 

Livermore,  Mary  A.,  275-278. 

Locke,  David  R.,  33. 

Longfellow,  Alice,  42,  96,  224. 

Longfellow,  Charles,  128,  216. 

Longfellow,  Edith,  42,  213,  214. 

Longfellow,  Mrs.  Ernest  W.,  42. 

Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  13,  19,  23> 
34,  35,  39,  42,  43,  44,  45,  46,  47, 
48,  60  and  «.,  90,  96,  97,  98,  99, 
109,  115,  116,  117,  119,  123,  124, 
125,  126,  127,  128,  129,  141,  144, 
152,  153,  159,  160,  161,  172,  205, 
206,  207,  208,  209,  211,  212  and 
w.,  213,  214,  215,  216,  222,  223, 
224,  243,  256,  257,  258,  273. 

Longfellow,  Mrs.  H.  W.,  55,  223. 

Longfellow,  Samuel,  42,  2i2«. 

Loring,  Charles  G.,  36  n. 

Lowell,  Frances  (Dunbar),  123,  124. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  letters  of,  to 
J.  T.  F.,  107,  108,  112,  113,  120, 
141  «. ;  5,  13,  33,34,  -^i;,  36«.,  90, 
92,  93,  94,  95,  104,  105,  106,  107 
ff.,  116,  117,  123,  124,  126,  127, 
149,  159,  163,  164,  166,  243,  273. 

Lowell,  Mabel,  107,  113,  123,  124, 
149. 

Lunt,  George,  214. 

Luther,  Martin,  89. 

Lytton,  Edward  Bulwer,  Lord,  168, 
I76,;i77. 

Macready,  William,  218. 
Maistre,  Joseph  de,  221. 
Mars,  Anne  F.  H.,  210,  211. 
Mathews,  Charles,  207. 
Merivale,  Herman,  95. 
Miller,  Joaquin,  43,  126. 
Milton,  John,  74. 
Mistral,  Frederic,  293-297. 
Mistral,  Mme.   Frederic,  295,   296, 

297. 
Mitchell,  Donald  G.,  185. 
Mitford,  Mary  R.,  98. 
Montaigne,  Michel  de,  112,  238,  239. 
Morton,  VV.  T.  G.,  94  and  n. 
Motley,  J.  Lothrop,  37. 
Mott,  Lucretia  C,  74. 
Murdoch,  James  E.,  217,  218. 


Music  Hall,  Boston,  great  organ  in, 
219,  220,  221. 

"Nasby,  Petroleum  V."  6"^^  Locke, 
D.  R. 

Nichol,  Professor,  90. 
Nilsson,  Christine,  214,  224-226. 
Norton,  Caroline  (Sheridan),  46. 
Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  92,  103,  104, 

141,  144,  172,  185,  187. 
Norton,  Mrs.  C.  E.,  163. 

O'Brien,  Fitz- James,  227-229. 
O'Connell,  Daniel,  173,  176,  177. 
Orsay,  Count  d',  145. 
Osgood,   James   R.,    116,    136,    151, 
153,  161,  162,  165,  166,  167,  185. 

Parker,  Harvey  D.,  206. 
Parkman,  Francis,  104,  105. 
Parkman,  Mrs.  Francis,  35. 
Parkman,  George,  murder  of,  153. 
Parsons,  Thomas  W.,  208,  214. 
Parton,  James,  no,  m,  232. 
Peabody,  Elizabeth,  82,  119. 
Pedro,  Dom,  Emperor  of  Brazil,  1 27, 

128. 
Perabo,  Ernst,  224. 
Phelps,  Elizabeth  Stuart,  275. 
Phi  Beta   Kappa,  Harvard   (1868), 

36,  37;  92- 

Phillips,  Wendell,  89,  114. 

Phipps,  Colonel,  188,  189. 

Pickwick,  Mr.,  11 1. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  Hawthorne's  loy- 
alty to,  13,  14,  15.;  57,  58,67. 

Pierce,  Mrs.  Franklin,  death  of,  57, 
58. 

Pierce,  Henry  L.,  229,  290. 

Poore,  Ben  Perley,  266. 

Pratt,  Mrs.  Ellerton,  288. 

Prescott,  Harriet  (Mrs.Spofford),  58. 

Putnam,  George,  36  w.,  213. 

Putnam,  John  P.,  221. 

QuiNCY,  Edmund,  86,  273. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  85,  275,  276,  277. 
Quincy,  Josiah  P.,  86,  92,  93. 
Quincy,  Mrs.  Josiah  P.,  92. 
Quixote,  Don,  no. 


312 


INDEX 


Radical  Clitb,  114. 
Raymond,  John  i".,  253. 
Read,  John  M.,  31,  32. 
Read,  T.  Buchanan,  44. 
Reade.  Charles,  146. 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  iii. 
Ripley,  Miss,  88. 
Ripley,  Mrs.,  91. 
Ristori,  Adelaide,  222. 
Rogers,  Samuel,  185. 
Rossctti,  Christina,  <>7 
Rowsc,  Samuel  \V.,  1 52. 
Russell,  Thomas,  261. 

Sanborn,  F.  B.,  68. 

Saturday  Club,  104,  105,  116  and  n. 

Schur/,  Carl,  266. 

Scott-Siddons,  Mrs.,  no. 

Seward,  William  H.,  28,  219,  267. 

Shaw,  Ixmuel,  232. 

Shaw,  Robert  Cj.,  I4,  24. 

Shelley.  Percy  B.,  16. 

Sherman,  William  T.,  7-. 

ShicI,  Mr.,  173,  176. 

Silsl>cc,  Mrs.,  9>,  143- 

Smith,  Alexander,  1-,  19. 

Smith,  Samuel  F.,  47. 

Smith,  Sydney,  89,  2«7. 

Somerset,  Duchess  o^  46. 

Stanley,  Fxlward  Ci.  S.S.  (aftcnvard 

14th  F.arl  of  Derby),  173,  1 74,  1 75. 
Stanton,  F^lwin  M.,  267. 
Stci>hen,  l.eslic,  95. 
Sterling,  John,  75. 
Stone,  I.ucy,  1 14. 
Story,  William  W.,  116. 
Stotharil,  Thomas,  190. 
Stowc,  Calvin  F.,  272, 
Stowe,  "(icorgie,"  38,  39. 
Stowe,  Harriet  Becchcr,  38,  39,  61, 

191  and  «.,  2^>8,  272. 
Sumner,  Charles,  42,  44,  45,  46,  48, 

77,  105,  219,258-267. 

Tavlor,  Bayard,  109, 1 10, 1 1 1, 1 1^', 

117,  118,  119,  228,  26*1. 
Taylor,  Mrs.  Bayard,  109,  no,  ni. 
Tennent,  Sir  Fmerson.  153. 
Tcnnvson,  Alfred,  Ixird,  254,  279. 
Tennyson,  Lady,  279. 


Terry,  Ellen,  218,  300,  301. 

Thackeray,  William  M.,  32,  33,  n  i, 
I  ?4,  2^6. 

Thaxtcr,  Cclia,  98,  129-131,  152, 
154.  2«8. 

Thompson,  Launt,  198. 

Thorcau,  Helen,  62,  74. 

Thnreau,  Henry  D.,  14,  62,  68,  74, 
89,  90. 

Thoreau,  Sophia,  68. 

Thoreau,  Mrs.  (mother  of  H.  D.T.), 
6:,  68,  74. 

Ticknor,  William  D.,  63/. 

Tick  nor  and  Fields,  10. 

Ticknor,  Reed  and  Fields,  17. 

Towne,  Alice,  45. 

Townc,  Helen,  45. 

Townshend,  Chaunccy,  169. 

Trimble,  Colonel,  273. 

Twain,  Mark.  See  Clemens,  Sam- 
uel L. 

Upham,  J.  Baxter,  221  and  n. 

Vai'Ohan,  Hekrv,  74,  81,  95. 
Viardot-Garcia,  Michelle  F.  P.,  225. 
Victoria,  Queen,  1 87,  1 88. 
Vicuxtcmps,  Henri,  225. 

Ward,    Artemus.        See    Browne, 

Charles  F. 
Ward,  Mary  A.    (Mrs.    Humphry), 

288. 
Wanl,  Samuel,  90. 
Warren,  William,  203,  205,  206. 
Washington,  Cicorgc,  259. 
Wasson,  David  A.,  n4. 
Watcrston,  Mrs.,  24. 
Watts,  Isaac,  loi. 
Webster,  John  W..  153. 
Whipple,  Edwin  P.,  20. 
White,  .Andrew  D.,  92. 
Whitman,  Sarah,  288. 
Whitney,  .Anne,  loi,  102,  206. 
Whitticr,  Elizal>eth,  2i;9. 
Whitticr,  John  G.,  39,  40,  68,  70, 

n4,  129,  130,  131,  161,  222,  244, 

288 
Willard,  Eliza  J.     See  Fields,  Eliza 

J.  (Willard). 


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